Santee Cooper has a $425 million deal to end a legal battle with Westinghouse.

This could affect power rates of Mid-Carolina Electric member-owners in Lexington County.

The bankrupt electric giant was the reactor contractor whose long delays and escalating costs led to a $9 billion nuclear failure.

The deal reportedly will allow Santee Cooper to sell the remaining material at the abandoned site for up to $425 million.

It will share some money with Westinghouse for its intellectual property rights.

The taxpayer-owned utility is $7.6 billion in debt, half of it from its nuclear project with SC Electric & Gas.

Santee Cooper and Westinghouse claimed ownership of the leftover parts.

Santee Cooper CEO Mark Bonsall said the deal will let Santee Cooper cash in on the material left over.

Bonsall said they would not have been able to resell some of the more expensive nuclear components without Westinghouse’s cooperation.

“Right, wrong or indifferent, they have a valid point that the other equipment has no value without the intellectual property that goes along with it,” Bonsall said.

Santee Cooper hopes to use the money from the leftover parts to help pay down the $3.6 billion in debt on the abandoned reactors.

State lawmakers worry about what Santee Cooper’s debt could mean to electricity costs for Mid-Carolina and members of the other 19 electric cooperatives it supplies with power.