Ratepayers fought back and filed a class-action lawsuit against the utility companies. Recently a state judge orders a second round of refunds based on the sale of assets by Dominion Energy SC. Sixty-one million is being set aside from those sale proceeds to be distributed to 1.1 million customers who never got a watt of electricity "too cheap to meter". The first refund in 2019 totaled $60 million. Dominion bought the unfinished project after South Carolina Electric & Gas ran out of money to finish the reactors. Four executives of the companies building the power station have pled guilty to criminal charges.
Former SCANA chief executive Kevin Marsh reported to federal prison last year where he will serve a two year sentence for fraud. He mislead investors and the public about the project's progress, milking ratepayers of over $1 billion. Marsh and executive VP Stephen Byrne were sued by the SEC for their failure to disclose material information concerning construction progress. They repeated told interested parties that the project would be completed by 2020, a deadline to obtain $1.4 billion in federal tax credits, which their company needed to avoid being overwhelmed by escalating construction costs. In reality the project was a debacle. Westinghouse, building the reactors when bankrupt three months before the project collapsed. An independent report stated the reactors would not be finished in twenty-two years. In other words, Marsh and his executives out-trumped Trump.
The last time a money refund was issued based on power consumption, checks as small as four cents were issued. Ten percent of the money went unclaimed. The judge said she would consider using bill credits for amounts under $50 this time. [photo credit: AP]