VIENNA, Va., October 5, 2026 — Energy Ventures Analysis (“EVA”) today released Evaluating the Continued Operation of Dominion Energy’s Coal-Fueled Generation in South Carolina, an analysis of what Dominion Energy South Carolina’s (“DESC”) 2026 Integrated Resource Plan (“IRP”) shows about the cost and reliability value of continuing to operate the Wateree and Williams coal stations.
DESC’s preferred plan retires Wateree at the end of 2032 and Williams at the end of 2034. The utility states that both units are capable of operating into the mid-2040s, and its approved depreciation study assigns them probable retirement dates of 2045 and 2048. The IRP also includes two supplemental cases, which DESC was directed to prepare, in which the model rather than the utility selects the retirement dates. In both, the model chose later dates.
EVA’s report works entirely from DESC’s own filing. Among its findings:
- Under the same reference assumptions used for the preferred plan, allowing retirement timing to optimize keeps Williams in service through 2046, lowers the 30-year levelized net present value of costs to customers by $39.4 million, and lowers the projected 2040 retail rate by approximately 6.4%, from $0.1966/kWh to $0.1841/kWh — while building the same 5,344 MW of replacement capacity.
- The savings come from timing rather than from building less. Retaining Williams defers 946 MW of combustion turbine additions from 2040 and 2045 to 2047.
- Under DESC’s high load forecast, the model retains Wateree through 2044 and Williams through 2046. That case differs from the reference case only in the load forecast, which isolates the effect of demand on the economic retirement date.
- The high load forecast is a near-term step change rather than a faster long-run growth rate. It tracks the reference forecast through 2028, then diverges over three years to a gap of about 1,011 MW that holds through 2045. DESC’s reported annual system peak grew at about 1.7% a year from 2020 through 2025, above the 1.4% the reference forecast assumes.
- Williams supplies roughly 80% of DESC’s generating capacity in the Charleston area and cannot retire until the Canadys combined-cycle station and associated transmission are in service. Canadys depends in turn on three separate interstate pipeline expansions, each requiring its own authorization from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and on transmission facilities that have not yet been designed or sited.
- The preferred plan raises natural gas from about 48% of firm winter capacity in 2025 to roughly 62% by 2040, at the same time that Duke Energy and Georgia Power are adding roughly 13 GW of new gas-fired generation drawing on the same interstate pipeline network.
“When DESC’s model was allowed to choose the retirement dates, it chose later ones,” said Phillip Graeter, a Partner at EVA. “We did not have to build a competing analysis to find that. It is in the utility’s own filing.”
“A retirement decision is irreversible. Load forecasts, fuel economics and federal regulation are not,” Graeter said. “That asymmetry is what makes the timing of the commitment worth examining carefully.”
Scope of the analysis
The report is analytical rather than advocative. It evaluates what DESC’s own planning record shows about the economic, reliability and fuel-security value of continued operation at Wateree and Williams, and does not advocate a particular outcome. It also sets out the considerations that qualify its findings, including the capital required for continued operation, the forward assumptions behind coal supply, and the emissions and environmental effects that fall outside its scope.
Download the report
The full report is available at no charge HERE. EVA places no restriction on its use: it may be linked to, cited, excerpted, or reproduced, and EVA will respond directly to questions about its data, methodology, or findings.
Media and technical contact
Phillip Graeter, Partner
Energy Ventures Analysis
\n703-276-8900 · [email protected]
About Energy Ventures Analysis
Energy Ventures Analysis is an independent energy market consulting firm founded in 1981 and based in Vienna, Virginia. EVA provides supply, demand, and price forecasting and advisory services across the power, natural gas, coal, renewable energy, and environmental markets for utilities, producers, financial institutions ,and government clients.
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