Santee Cooper votes to retire the coal and oil units at its Moncks Corner power plant

Santee Cooper plans to close the coal and oil units at Jefferies Generating Station in Moncks Corner.

The Santee Cooper Board of Directors voted Friday to authorize retiring six generating units at its two oldest stations, Jefferies and Grainger Generating Station in Conway, the utility said. Four burn coal and two burn oil.

The board weighed how much generating capacity Santee Cooper will need and what it would cost to comply with new environmental rules, according to the utility. Grainger’s units have been idle since the spring while Santee Cooper studied the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, issued last December.

“It is not a decision we make lightly. However, it is the most cost-effective move we can make,” Board Chairman O.L. Thompson said in Santee Cooper’s announcement.

Jefferies has four units on the list, two coal-fired and two oil-fired, with a combined capacity of 398 megawatts. The oldest two date to 1954, and units 3 and 4 came online in 1970, Santee Cooper said. The vote does not affect the Jefferies Hydroelectric Generating Station. Grainger came online in 1966 and has a capacity of 170 megawatts.

The utility expects to move affected employees into other jobs that open through attrition and does not expect layoffs. It has not set a timetable for the retirements.

“Even so, this was a difficult recommendation for management to make, given the important legacies of these two generating stations to our utility, our state and to the communities around them,” President and CEO Lonnie Carter said.

Carter said the next step is to evaluate options and set a schedule. “These stations are neighbors to thousands of our customers, after all, and we fully intend to remain involved in these communities,” he said.

The vote marks Santee Cooper’s first unit retirements since it first generated electricity in 1942. The utility was established in 1934 and has 165,000 direct-serve customers. Hundreds of thousands more get its power through the state’s 20 electric cooperatives, Santee Cooper said.