Dominion CEO Answers Questions About Ads, Plans for Abandoned V.C. Summer Equipment

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO)-Dominion Energy executives were back in the hot seat Wednesday facing tough questions about what their company would do to put more money back in your pockets.

Senators went into the meeting seeking accountability, asking questions about the company’s plans for marketing and storing the abandoned equipment at the V.C. Summer site in Jenkinsville.

Lawmakers continued to raise questions about what should happen to the equipment purchased to be used in the unfinished reactors but are now abandoned in Fairfield County.

“What do you intend to do to protect these assets that were paid for, seven football fields long full of assets paid for by ratepayers over the last ten years?” asked Fairfield County Senator Mike Fanning.

“As it stands today, SCANA owns 55 percent then we would and at that time we would try to figure out what to do with it,” said Dominion Chief Executive Officer Tom Farrell.

That answer was not satisfactory for senators. “How can we take a proposal seriously that has not even looked at and developed an answer as to what they will do with those assets. They say they want to take care of ratepayers, they say they want to refund money to ratepayers and make them whole. Well the equipment that the ratepayers bought is sitting right there down the street and it is deteriorating and rotting every day,” Fanning said.

Senators estimate that equipment is valued at one billion dollars at the very least.

Lawmakers also want answers for the dominion ads they said threaten bankruptcy and can easily be misinterpreted as a guaranteed thousand dollar refund as long as viewers call their lawmakers.

“They claim that once again, we are the only game in town and once again bankruptcy is something you should be scared of. We do not want bankruptcy in South Carolina but we need to at least compare the harmful effect of bankruptcy to the harmful effects of this Dominion deal and we have no evidence that ratepayers would come out any worse on this Dominion deal than bankruptcy,” Fanning said.

Senators also said the Dominion ads have been airing in places like Myrtle Beach and Rock Hill where there are no SCE&G customers, something Farrell said he will be keeping an eye on.