Santee Cooper to purchase more green power

In a bid to replace coal with something more "green," state-owned Santee Cooper approved a plan Monday to buy an additional 1 percent of its power from an outfit that generates electricity by burning wood or landfill fumes.

The Moncks Corner-based utility did not set a deadline for buying the so-called green energy, but spokeswoman Mollie Gore said that it is already looking at potential suppliers.

"I think our people are talking to a whole lot of people," Gore said. "This could be anything from the branches you prune off your hedges to what's left after harvesting in the forest industry. It's literally stuff that is not going anywhere else."

Gore would not provide details on potential vendors, only noting that most of them were in South Carolina.

The plan calls for the utility to purchase 50 megawatts of biomass-derived power. Santee Cooper generates about 5,500 megawatts of power, roughly 15 megawatts of which comes from plants that burn landfill fumes.

Though the purchase would represent a fraction of the utility's energy footprint, it would provide enough power to serve 25,000 homes.

Santee Cooper would not say how much the new electricity would cost, though it noted that energy from renewable sources typically sells for a premium.

Read more in Tuesday's editions of The Post and Courier.