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By JIM DuPLESSIS jduplessis@thestate.com jduplessis@thestate.com

SCE&G ratepayers’ bills would rise 37 percent by 2019 if the state approves the Columbia utility’s plan to start paying costs upfront for two large nuclear reactors it would build 25 miles northwest of Columbia.

On Friday, SCE&G submitted a 210-page document to the S.C. Public Service Commission to support a rate increase that would span nearly 11 years. The money would pay a portion of its $6.3 billion cost for the reactors to be built at its V.C. Summer nuclear plant in Fairfield County.

Power companies are turning back to nuclear power because of the growing concern about global warming from emissions from coal-fired power plants — the traditional mainstay of large-scale electricity generation.

The reactors near Jenkinsville would be among the first to be built in 30 years in the United States. The Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident in 1979 raised public concerns about safety. Investors were scared off in the 1980s by construction delays, rising construction costs and weaker-than-projected electricity demand.

SCE&G said it is asking ratepayers to pay costs before the first unit begins operation to save on its construction costs.

Critics say the practice allows utilities to unfairly charge today’s ratepayers for tomorrow’s power.

“It shifts all the risk from the shareholders to ratepayers,” said Tom Clements, Southeastern Nuclear Campaign Coordinator in Columbia, for Friends of the Earth.

If the PSC determines SCE&G’s request is prudent, the at Columbia-based utility could start raising rates in March 2009.

The rate increase would span 130 months, or nearly 11 years.

The PSC will probably hold hearings on the issue late this year, said Dukes Scott, executive director of the Office of Regulatory Staff, which represents the interests of the public before the PSC.

Scott said he will be looking closely at SCE&G’s need for additional power from whatever source. If the company can show the need, then nuclear is probably a better option than coal because of coal’s environmental drawbacks, he said. And alternative energy and conservation probably can’t fill the need.

“I don’t see how we can conserve our way out of a base-load plant,” Scott said.

The first proposed increase in March 2009 is the smallest — 0.5 percent — and would raise the average residential customer’s monthly bill to $108.20 from $107.67. By 2020, the average customer would be paying $147 per month.

Altogether, SCE&G would raise $1.2 billion through 2019 from its 80,000 business customers and 550,000 residential customers.

The increases would cover only what SCE&G pays in borrowing costs until its first unit goes online in 2016. Then ratepayers would begin paying the capital costs — or principal — for the first unit. After the second unit goes online in 2019, it could begin recovering its remaining costs.

SCE&G and state-owned Santee Cooper have signed a contract with The Shaw Group and Westinghouse Electric to design and build the units at a total cost of $9.8 billion.

SCE&G customers would pay $5.4 billion, or 55 percent of the costs; customers of state-owned Santee Cooper would pay the remaining $4.4 billion. Santee Cooper’s board can decide whether to charge its ratepayers in advance of the plants’ operation, but has no plans to do so within the next two years, utility officials have said.

SCE&G also would have about $900 million in costs outside the contract, raising the total cost to the utility for the plants to $6.3 billion.

The utilities submitted their plans in March to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review, a process that typically takes three to four years. If approved, work could begin in 2011.

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ABOUT THE REACTORS

WHO: South Carolina Electric & Gas and Santee Cooper

WHAT: Two new 1,117-megawatt reactors

WHEN: If approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, construction could begin in 2011. The first reactor is scheduled to begin generating electricity in 2016, and the second one in 2019.

WHERE: SCE&G's V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville, about 25 miles northwest of Columbia

JOBS: As many as 4,000 workers will be needed to build the reactors; running them will require 800 to 1,000 permanent employees, SCE&G said.