Santee Cooper expects to need a lot more electricity, and soon.

The Moncks Corner-based utility’s board reviewed its proposed 2026 integrated resource plan on Sept. 29 and approved sending it to the S.C. Public Service Commission on Sept. 30 for review, Santee Cooper announced. The plan forecasts winter peak demand 1,250 megawatts higher by 2030, and 1,375 megawatts higher by 2040, than the utility’s 2023 plan did.

In-migration, industrial reshoring and data center construction are “reshaping the state and its electrical infrastructure needs,” the plan says. It projects winter peak demand rising from 5,765 megawatts in 2026 to 7,540 megawatts in 2045.

To meet that, the preferred plan calls for near-term resources starting in 2027 and growing to about 350 megawatts of firm capacity before the Canadys joint natural gas plant comes online. Santee Cooper and Central Electric Power Cooperative will jointly consider which resources to use, the utility said. It adds a new natural gas combined cycle plant in 2035 and Santee Cooper’s expected share of power from restarting construction of two unfinished nuclear units at the former V.C. Summer site in Fairfield County.

Closer to home, the plan describes a battery project already under way: a 300-megawatt, four-hour storage system at the Jefferies Generating Station site in Moncks Corner, once home to coal and oil units. Aypa Power won the contract, the project gave its construction contractor notice to proceed in September, and it is expected to come online Dec. 1, 2027, according to the plan.

“Our proposed resource plan gives Santee Cooper the flexibility to meet fast-growing demand, support economic development, and adapt to future regulatory changes with confidence,” President and CEO Jimmy Staton said.

Under the plan, Santee Cooper projects greenhouse gas emissions falling to about 43% of 2005 levels by 2035 and below 40% by 2050.

Santee Cooper directly serves about 222,000 residential and commercial customers in Berkeley, Georgetown and Horry counties and 27 large industrial companies, according to the plan.