BACKGROUND

Energy efficiency is less expensive, yields larger economic returns, results in greater social benefits like improved indoor comfort and air quality, and promises superior environmental performance to all other available energy resources. It also presents a unique opportunity to alleviate inequitable home energy cost burdens that disproportionately impact low-income communities. Because energy efficiency can meet a large portion of South Carolina’s foreseeable energy needs, it should be treated as the resource of first resort. Unfortunately, this cleanest, lowest-cost resource is woefully underutilized in our state.

With billions of dollars in new electric utility investments expected over the next decade to serve growing demand, primarily due to data centers, energy efficiency is more important than ever for reducing the need for expensive new generating capacity and helping families and businesses lower their bills.

South Carolina currently ranks 40th nationally in energy efficiency, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. However, recent research by the nonpartisan group E2 found that there were already nearly 30,000 energy efficiency jobs statewide. More aggressive energy efficiency policies could support tens of thousands of additional jobs and billions of dollars in both utility bill savings and economic growth in South Carolina. These policies include updated building codes and appliance standards, financing mechanisms and improved incentives for building retrofits, workforce development initiatives, and mandatory efficiency targets for electric utilities.

House Bill 3309, signed by the governor in May 2025, contains provisions that could potentially help to advance energy efficiency. However, the final version of the bill does not include the modest energy savings targets that had been approved in the Senate version. The new law authorizes the S.C. Public Service Commission (PSC) to appoint a third-party administrator to implement the utilities’ ratepayer-funded energy efficiency programs, but it stops short of requiring the PSC to do so. Appointing a third-party administrator could help to mitigate the negative effects of investor-owned utilities’ profit motive to sell more energy.

South Carolina’s electricity providers have launched energy efficiency programs that have begun to achieve substantial energy savings throughout our state, but they are lagging far behind the nation’s leading utilities. The Conservation League will continue to monitor the utilities’ implementation of efficiency programs with an eye towards maximizing savings achievements, cost-effectiveness, and transparency. We will also continue to support the adoption of policies aimed at helping more families and businesses cut their energy costs, while simultaneously creating local jobs and mitigating environmental impacts.

South Carolina has an opportunity to use energy efficiency to keep electricity demand from growing and prevent the construction of billions of dollars of risky new fossil-fuel power plants. South Carolinians already have some of the highest home energy costs in the country. Many of us continue to pay hundreds of dollars per year for the failed nuclear expansion project at V.C. Summer. We should all demand that our utilities fully utilize cost-effective energy efficiency first, instead of rushing to build expensive new power plants that are exposed to fuel cost volatility and pose serious harms to public health and the environment.