INFORMATION FOR POLICYMAKERS

South Carolina is experiencing rapid industrial and population growth, pushing electricity demand higher every year. But unlike many states, South Carolina’s power market remains fully controlled by monopoly utilities, meaning large energy users have no ability to shop for competitive electricity supply.

Across the U.S., 19 states already allow retail choice, giving businesses the ability to select their energy provider based on cost, reliability, and other preferences. South Carolina utilities themselves have even offered competitive options to individual large manufacturers in the past.

Retail choice brings the principles of a free market into electricity supply — enabling competition, lowering costs, and encouraging innovation.

Why It Matters

Energy costs significantly affect South Carolina’s business climate. Manufacturers and other large users face rising power prices with no competitive alternatives. Evidence from states with retail choice shows that competition lowers costs for large customers while also reducing rates for those who remain with their utility, because competition drives greater efficiency.

Retail choice also supports companies that want more renewable power access. Many competitive suppliers own more renewable assets than South Carolina’s utilities currently do, and some can develop behindthemeter solutions such as onsite solar or small modular nuclear systems to meet specific reliability or sustainability goals.

The bottom line: retail choice makes South Carolina more competitive for industry, investment, and job growth.

How It Works

Retail choice allows large energy users to purchase power from competitive suppliers instead of being limited to their assigned monopoly utility. Utilities would continue operating the transmission and distribution system, while competitive suppliers would sell the electricity itself.

Key facts: 

• Retail choice does not require a regional transmission organization (RTO), and South Carolina already has independent producers selling power into the market today.   

• Transmission capacity is sufficient to support competitive supply for large customers, as confirmed by independent experts. 

• Retail choice actually reduces strain on the grid, because load shifts off the utility’s system. 

• Utilities in South Carolina are currently “short” on generation, meaning demand exceeds existing supply. Retail choice helps avoid costly new plant construction by freeing up existing resources.   

Retail choice is not complex: it simply expands the energy marketplace and gives customers the freedom to choose.

The Impact

Adopting retail choice would bring immediate and longterm benefits to South Carolina: 

• Lower energy costs for large employers 

• Downward pressure on rates for all customers 

• Reduced need for expensive new power plants, lowering system costs for everyone 

• Greater access to innovative and renewable energy options 

• A more competitive environment that attracts investment and grows jobs 

• Freedom from aging monopoly 

Data from around the country shows that competition works — for businesses, for ratepayers, and for economic growth.

South Carolina has a clear opportunity to modernize its electricity market and strengthen its economic future by opening the door to competition.