Data Center Site Selection in South Carolina

South Carolina has no economically recoverable fossil fuel reserves, and its grid leans on nuclear plants instead.¹ Nuclear supplied 55% of in-state generation in 2023, and the state ranks third nationally in both nuclear capacity and nuclear generation, behind Illinois and Pennsylvania.¹ For a data center buyer that means a base of carbon-free, around-the-clock supply, but not spare capacity: new large loads still depend on new generation and transmission that the utilities have to plan, permit and pay for.

Demand expectations have swung. In April 2025 Santee Cooper’s pricing director told its board that large customers could need as much as 1,000 MW as soon as 2030.² By March 2026 utility lobbyists were telling a Senate subcommittee that pipelines were thinning: Dominion counted nine potential data centers in its South Carolina territory, all from speculative developers, and Duke said its Carolinas data center backlog had fallen from more than 100 projects to fewer than five.⁸ Duke also said its Carolinas territory had 40 data centers, only three above 50 MW, drawing about 470 MW together.⁸

That combination, real nuclear supply and a pipeline that has been cleared of much speculative interest, makes South Carolina a state where a credible, well-documented load request can still stand out. Our Southeast regional guide compares it with Georgia and North Carolina.

The first screening question in South Carolina is the service territory, because the three main suppliers handle large loads under different rules and different regulators. South Carolina is not in an organized wholesale market, so terms are set utility by utility.

The cooperative row deserves attention from landowners in rural counties. In May 2025 Santee Cooper disputed a contract under which cooperatives would receive a reduced rate for a data center it said would use upwards of 380 MW, arguing the load was too large and the discount too costly.⁹ Before relying on co-op service, ask who supplies the co-op wholesale and whether that supplier has agreed to serve the load. Our guide to large-load tariffs and electric service agreements explains the contract terms to look for.

Santee Cooper’s board voted unanimously in April 2025 to adopt a special rate for new customers requiring 50 MW or more, effective immediately.² It is not limited to data centers, and it runs for four years on an experimental basis before the board decides whether to make it permanent.² Its main terms are below.²

• A 15-year contract with the utility.
• Higher charges for power during periods of high demand.
• A ramp to full contracted usage within three years.

The three-year ramp is the term most likely to shape a site plan. A campus that intends to energize in phases over five or more years will need to size its contracted load to what it can actually use by year three, or accept paying for capacity it has not yet built into. Match the contract to a realistic ramp schedule and read our guide to phasing power for a campus.

The 2025 session produced House Bill 3309, the South Carolina Energy Security Act. The Senate passed it 35–11 on May 7, 2025,⁴ and Governor Henry McMaster held a ceremonial signing on June 18, 2025.¹⁰ For site selection, three parts matter:

• It authorizes a joint venture between Santee Cooper and Dominion Energy to build a large gas plant at Dominion’s retired Canadys coal plant site on the Edisto River.⁴
• It condenses the timeline for environmental permits, which critics said would make gas plants and pipelines easier to build.⁴
• It includes a mechanism that lets utilities recover costs through near-automatic annual rate increases.⁴

What the act left out matters as much. The Senate had amended the bill to require data centers to pay their own way for the energy they need, but the House removed the provision protecting customers from subsidizing gas plants built for data centers.⁶ The question of data center cost responsibility was therefore pushed to the Public Service Commission and later sessions. The Canadys plant still faces a Siting Act review at the commission, where opponents have said they will intervene.⁶

Duke’s South Carolina rate case settlements in late 2025 committed it to ask the commission to open a docket on large loads, covering large-load tariff elements, clean transition tariffs and flexible interconnection.¹¹ Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress filed that petition on May 27, 2026.³ It covers new loads of 50 MW or more and invites comments on minimum contract periods, collateral, exit policies and how generation, transmission and administrative costs are treated; the commission set the procedural schedule in Order No. 2026-362 on June 17.³

The Senate took up siting directly. S. 867, the Data Center Development Act, cleared the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee in April 2026.¹² As advanced to the full Senate, it would create a Data Center Development Office within the Department of Environmental Services and require a state siting permit, superseding the counties’ primary authority.¹² Reviews would run 60 days for 1–10 MW, 90 days for 11–50 MW and 120 days for loads above 50 MW, with the largest tier assessed for water supply, wastewater, road access and site suitability.¹² The bill also directs the commission to ensure data centers pay the full cost of the new generation and transmission built for them.¹² It did not advance on the Senate floor before the General Assembly’s scheduled May 14, 2026 adjournment; the Senate instead advanced budget provisos to study data center water use and tax exemptions.¹³ Expect a successor bill in 2027; our guide to state data center legislation tracks similar bills elsewhere.

On-site generation is the other live issue. In August 2026 the commission heard a challenge to Valara’s proposed $3 billion data center in Spartanburg County, where construction had already started.¹⁴ On August 27 it ruled unanimously that the law governing public utilities did not apply because the facility would not export power to the grid, a decision the Southern Environmental Law Center said could be appealed.¹⁵ Our guide to behind-the-meter power covers the trade-offs.

South Carolina’s best-known hyperscale cluster is Google’s, near Charleston. In October 2025 Google announced $9 billion of investment in the state through 2027, expanding its Berkeley County data center campus and continuing construction of two new sites in Dorchester County.⁷ The cluster shows what the Lowcountry offers: large industrial parcels, access to the Santee Cooper and Dominion systems and proximity to Charleston’s port and workforce.

It also shows what to screen for. Coastal counties carry flood, wetland and hurricane exposure that can shrink buildable acreage, and opponents of the Energy Security Act’s Canadys gas plant have warned it could require significant pipeline construction through the ACE Basin.⁴ See our guides to floodplains and wetlands for the land side, and compare inland options in the Upstate, where the Spartanburg dispute shows that entitlement and permitting questions now reach the state level.¹⁴

South Carolina has offered a sales tax exemption for qualifying datacenters since 2012. The Department of Revenue’s 2013 ruling describes it as covering computers, computer equipment, hardware and software used in a datacenter that meets the statute’s requirements, plus electricity used by the datacenter and property used to generate, transform, transmit, distribute or manage that electricity.¹⁶ The investment and job thresholds have been the subject of amendment proposals, so read the current text of the statute with a tax advisor rather than relying on older summaries.

The exemption became a 2026 political issue partly because of a number. The Department of Revenue first reported that data center sales tax breaks reached $828 million in the fiscal year ending June 2025, then said it had made a units error and that the correct figure was about $828,000.⁵ The agency also said it does not track how much of the benefit comes from equipment versus electricity.⁵ During budget debate, Senator Chip Campsen sought a one-year suspension of the exemptions and did not succeed.⁵ Our guide to sales tax exemptions by state compares South Carolina’s program with its neighbors’.

1. 01Confirm the supplier: Santee Cooper, Dominion Energy South Carolina, Duke or a cooperative, and who supplies the co-op at wholesale.⁹
2. 02Under Santee Cooper, test the plan against the 15-year term and the three-year ramp.²
3. 03Under Duke, follow the large-load docket for minimum contract, collateral and exit terms.³
4. 04Under Dominion, ask what contract terms apply and whether commission review is expected.⁸
5. 05If on-site generation is planned, review the Valara ruling and any appeal with counsel.¹⁵
6. 06Check S. 867 and any successor bill for state siting permits and review periods.¹²
7. 07Confirm sales tax exemption eligibility under the current statute.¹⁶

These checks do not replace written answers from the utility, the county and advisors, but they show quickly whether a parcel deserves that effort. Our due diligence checklist covers the rest, our North Carolina guide covers Duke’s other Carolinas jurisdiction, and you can get a site reviewed if you want an outside screen of a South Carolina parcel.