South Carolina Code 58-27-845. Findings and enumeration of electrical utility customer rights
(1) protect customers from rising utility costs;
Terms Used In South Carolina Code 58-27-845
- commission: means the Public Service Commission of this State. See South Carolina Code 58-27-10
- electrical utility: includes municipalities to the extent of their business, property, rates, transactions, and operations without the corporate limits of the municipality, persons and corporations, their lessees, assignees, trustees, receivers, or other successors in interest owning or operating in this State equipment or facilities for generating, transmitting, delivering, or furnishing electricity for street, railway, or other public uses or for the production of light, heat, or power to or for the public for compensation; but it shall not include an electric cooperative or a consolidated political subdivision and shall not include a person, corporation, or municipality furnishing electricity only to himself or itself, their residents, employees, or tenants when such current is not resold or used by others. See South Carolina Code 58-27-10
- public: means the public generally or any limited portion of the public, including a person, corporation, or municipality. See South Carolina Code 58-27-10
- rate: means and includes every compensation, charge, toll, rental, and classification, or any of them, demanded, observed, charged, or collected by any electrical utility for any electric current or service offered by it to the public and any rules, regulations, practices, or contracts affecting any such compensation, charge, toll, rental, or classification. See South Carolina Code 58-27-10
(2) provide opportunities for customer measures to reduce or manage electrical consumption from electrical utilities in a manner that contributes to reductions in utility peak electrical demand and other drivers of electrical utility costs; and
(3) equip customers with the information and ability to manage their electric bills.
(B) Every customer of an electrical utility has the right to a rate schedule that offers the customer a reasonable opportunity to employ such energy and cost-saving measures as energy efficiency, demand response, or onsite distributed energy resources in order to reduce consumption of electricity from the electrical utility’s grid and to reduce electrical utility costs.
(C) In fixing just and reasonable utility rates pursuant to § 58-3-140 and § 58-27-810, the commission shall consider whether rates are designed to discourage the wasteful use of public utility services while promoting all use that is economically justified in view of the relationships between costs incurred and benefits received, and that no one class of customers are unduly burdening another, and that each customer class pays, as close as practicable, the cost of providing service to them.
(D) For each class of service, the commission must ensure that each electrical utility offers to each class of service a minimum of one reasonable rate option that aligns the customer’s ability to achieve bill savings with long-term reductions in the overall cost the electrical utility will incur in providing electric service, including, but not limited to, time-variant pricing structures.
(E) Every customer of an electrical utility has a right to obtain their own electric usage data in a machine-readable, accessible format to the extent such is readily available. Electrical utilities shall allow customers an electronic means to assent to share the customer’s energy usage data with a third-party vendor designated by the customer.