nuke fiasco aftermath

We are in the closed door, confidential stage of selling a taxpayer-owned utility.

No one is talking about who the prospective buyers are for Santee Cooper.

The governor and other lawmakers aim to sell it since the $9 billion Santee Cooper-SC Electric & Gas nuclear fiasco loaded it with debt.

In this series on the sale, the Chronicle will show why this is important to many Chronicle readers.

Whoever buys it will:

• Supply power to Mid-Carolina Electric in Lexington County and other state electric cooperatives.

• Affect the rates those cooperatives’ members pay for power each month.

• Give lawmakers billions of dollars they can use to reduce our taxes or spend on their own pet projects.

The most likely prospects are Duke Energy of North Carolina, the Southern Company of Georgia and possibly Dominion of Virginia which has been offering to buy SC Electric & Gas.

A fourth prospect is the world’s largest operator of wind and solar farms – and our country’s most valuable power company.

But few of us have ever heard of NextEra Energy.

“That is a marketing problem that we foster intentionally,” Michael O’Sullivan, NextEra Energy’s renewable development head, told University of Notre Dame students in 2015.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the company originally known as Florida Power & Light has grown into a green Goliath.

It did not take on heavy debt as Santee Cooper and SCE&G did in financing their now abandoned twin nuclear reactor project.

It expanded by capitalizing on government support for renewable energy.

Tax subsidies have helped finance wind and solar projects across the country.

NextEra carefully builds its farms only after it has customers ready to buy, avoiding debt problems that sank many of its rivals.

It avoids any claim of altruistic motives common in the green energy industry.

“They focused on business fundamentals,” said Andrew Hoffman, a University of Michigan business professor who served on a NextEra advisory board.

As the US’s most valuable power company, NextEra has $74 billion in market capital, up from $10.2 billion 17 years ago.

In 2017 federal filings, NextEra said it produced more megawatt-hours of electricity from wind and solar farms than any company in the world.

Regulatory documents suggest it is a bigger wind and solar producer than its largest global competitors in Europe and China.

It captured the lead in the renewable energy market despite the industry’s struggles with little growth.

Federal officials expect the industry to generate $4.8 billion in renewable-energy tax credits this year.

NextEra aims to be the largest generator, selling some of its tax credits to others to cut their taxes and using the rest to cut its own.

NextEra has been led for more than 15 years by the same executives.

James Robo was elevated to chief executive in 2012.

Robo and his officials declined to be interviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Next: Will NextEra’s challenges allow it to compete for Santee Cooper?