Midnight Power Switch in Seneca

Just after midnight Wednesday morning, the City of Seneca switched power suppliers. “It was a seamless transition from the Southern Company to the South Carolina Public Service Authority, commonly known as Santee Cooper,” said Mayor Dan Alexander. “When we did the switch over there wasn’t any interruption in power, we were able to just switch over.” Mayor Alexander added that changing to a new electric power provider is a major process. “We go through a pretty big process to make that change to decide who is going to be our next whole sale provider. Over the last year or year and a half, we got several different proposals in to provide us services and at the end of the day, Santee Cooper ended up with that contract. We feel very good about it and it is a ten-year contract that enables us to lock in some rates. It’s a state owned company, it’s been around for along time and serves lots of other cities too.” Rates stay the same this year, concludes Mayor Alexander. “In this year’s budget, we didn’t have any electric rate increases.” In the first year of the deal with Santee Cooper, the city projects to spend $10 million in order to meet all of its electric power needs.