Santee Cooper’s board approved their new business strategy – shifting the state-run utility’s energy forecast away from coal and toward solar power and gas-fired plants.  But they abandoned the proposed cost-saving agreement with Southern Company that the new CEO, Mark Bonsall, wanted.  He was looking for ways the two power companies could save money by jointly managing their fuel supplies, purchasing, energy trading, and coal ash waste.

Bonsall told reporters that he had discovered that there are more kinds of storms in South Carolina that just hurricanes.  

Legislators, state officials and the co-ops argued that this arrangement would have undermined the state’s attempt to find potential bidders for Santee Cooper.   Lawmakers has already planned to vote early next year on whether to sell the Moncks Corner-based utility, hire another company to manage it, or to keep it under state control. 

However, CEO Bonsall’s other proposals for Santee Cooper were accepted and after a short presentation, the board voted unanimously on a strategy that will drastically cut the amount of power the utility generates from coal-fired plants.