Santee Cooper (also known as the South Carolina Public Service Authority) said Dec. 17 that it has decided, based on an Oct. 19 decision by its Board of Directors, to permanently retire the two coal units at the Grainger plant and the two coal units at the Jefferies plant as of Dec. 31 of this year.
The board voted Oct. 19 to authorize retirement of six units at its two oldest stations, after considering Santee Cooper’s generation resource needs and the cost of complying with new environmental regulations. The board directed Santee Cooper’s president and CEO to develop plans for an orderly retirement of the four coal and two oil units. At that time, the utility didn’t say just when the coal units would be retired, with the Dec. 17 announcement taking care of that open question about the coal units. The announcement didn’t address the oil units.
- Jefferies, located in Moncks Corner, has four units slated to be retired. Two are coal-fired and two use oil. The oldest two units date to 1954, Units 3 and 4 came online in 1970, and the four have a combined capacity of 398 MW. The decision does not affect the adjacent Jefferies Hydroelectric Generating Station.
- Grainger, located in Conway, came online in 1966 and has a capacity of 170 MW. The station has been idle since earlier this year as Santee continued evaluating potential impacts of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS).
