Summer Rising

On a crisp morning in 1937, if you asked him, he may have gone with you and his other friends to a fishing spot just over that hill. But to support his disabled father, and his mother and siblings, Virgil Clifton Summer, Jr., graduated from high school and went to work. The Parr Steam Plant had given him a job: sweeping floors and mowing grass. He was then just 16 years old.

After four years as a Navy sailor in World War 2, a college degree, professional engineering license, and a couple decades of hard work back at South Carolina Electric & Gas, he became SCANA’s Chairman, President, and CEO. In 1971, the board named the company’s first nuclear plant for him. Everyone’s heard of Summer 1, and many remember Chairman Summer the gentleman. And now comes the next generation, bearing the same proud name as the original.

In September, the South Carolina Public Service Commission granted SCE&G’s application for a 1.1 percent increase in retail electric rates to help pay for the new generating station, an early of many milestones in the company’s long-term plan to provide steady, clean energy and save its customers $4 billion on electricity bills by lowering the cost of construction, capital, depreciation, property taxes, and insurance.

Last week, SCE&G published its quarterly report of the new units’ status: pre-construction work at V. C. Summer 2 and 3 is well underway in sunny Jenkinsville, South Carolina, on schedule and budget.

We think the old man would be proud.