S.C. Rate Price Request Could Hike Duke Energy Electric Bills for Upstate

Jessica Holdman/S.C. Daily Gazette

Customers of South Carolina’s two large, private power companies could see their electric bills go up in 2026 — the second time in two years that utilities have hiked base rates.

It has been 16 months since Dominion Energy’s South Carolina customers last saw their rates increase. Now, the Virginia-headquartered company is headed back before state utility regulators seeking to raise base electric rates again.

If approved by the state Public Service Commission, residential customers who use 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month — considered the industry standard — would see another $20 tacked on to their current monthly bill, Dominion’s regulatory manager John Raftery told the SC Daily Gazette. That would take average bills from about $157 a month to just shy of $177, starting in July 2026.

This does not include potential increases for cost of fuel, which can be added to bills along the way.

Dominion’s ask comes on the heels of rate hikes approved for Duke Energy customers across the Upstate and Pee Dee.

And electricity costs have been on the rise nationally, not just in South Carolina.

Utility rate increase requests and approvals totaled more than $34 billion in the first nine months of 2025, according to PowerLines, a nonprofit focused on lowering utility bills. That’s almost double the $16 billion in requests and approvals over the same period in 2024.

The national average price of electricity rose faster than inflation in 2025, and government forecasters at the U.S. Energy Information Administration expect that will continue through this year. But the increases have not hit as hard in South Carolina and many other Southeastern states when compared to the West Coast and Northeast.

Dominion is asking for the increase, which would bring in $332 million more annually from all 820,000 customers it serves across the Lowcountry and Midlands. Utility officials say that will help cover $1.4 billion worth of investments made to the utility’s South Carolina system since March 2024.

That includes:

• $500 million spent on the lines that carry power directly to people’s homes and businesses

• $270 million spent on large transmission lines that move power around the state

• $515 million on power plants and hydropower produced at Lake Murray

• $120 million on Hurricane Helene recovery

Utilities’ annual spending on the network of poles and wires that deliver power to customers has nearly tripled over the past two decades, according to U.S. Department of Energy data, as large portions of the electric grid near the end of their 50-year life spans. As climate change drives more frequent storms, fires, heat waves, and cold spells, companies also are having to do more to make the grid more resistant to natural disasters.

Some of those improvements to the transmission lines and a coal-fired power plant near Goose Creek are required by federal energy and environmental regulations, said Keller Kissam, president of Dominion’s South Carolina operations.

Others replace smaller, aging plants that are six decades old and hydro equipment that hasn’t been updated in nearly a century, Kissam added.

Dominion’s spending over the last two years is nearly equivalent to the $1.6 billion it spent in the five years prior. Kissam pointed, in part, to the rising cost of copper, steel and aluminum — all of which goes into the parts and components the utility uses in its power lines and equipment. The company also has added 23,000 new customers in that time.

“I would rather fight a Category 4 hurricane than file a rate case,” Kissam said.

But the company also is collecting less than half of the 9.94% rate of return regulators allowed it in 2024. That rate of return is how Dominion attracts investors willing to front the capital the company needs for construction, Kissam said.

Dominion is, in turn, asking regulators to up that return rate to 10.5%.

Duke Energy

As for Duke Energy, the average residential customer in the Pee Dee will see their bill rise by about $11 a month — from $154 to $165 for 1,000 kilowatt-hours of energy — starting in February. State utility regulators signed off on the rate hike on Dec. 12.

The increase for customers in the Upstate, approved Dec. 31, is far less — less than $1 more per month on average starting in March. But those customers still have a bump that has yet to take effect from a previously approved rate hike. That increase of $6.42 per month for the average residential customer comes in Aug. 1, 2026.

In all, Duke has about 857,000 customers in the Palmetto State.

As part of the deal, Duke will set aside funds, raised from investors, for customers who need help paying their bill when facing financial hardship — $750,000 annually for two years in the Pee Dee and $1.5 million annually for two years in the Upstate, according to the South Carolina chapter of the AARP.

Duke also agreed to take part in a petition asking regulators to review how large energy users — those that consume 50 megawatts or more — are charged for producing the power they require. The provision is aimed at the growing number of large data centers and manufacturing operations coming into South Carolina.

In turn, regulators are allowing Duke a 9.99% rate of return.