Dominion seals the SCANA merger after the VC Summer atomic phase

Almost 730,000 electrical customers in South Carolina are getting a new power company.

And about 5,200 full and part-time SCANA employees in Georgia and both Carolinas get new bosses.

Virginia-based Dominion Energy on Wednesday completed its buyout of Cayce-based SCANA Corp., the troubled power company that lost $ 5 billion, and now it is independence for a failed core construction project.

"Dominion Energy is pleased to add SCANA's fast-growing, performing southeastern businesses to our 18-state footprint," said Tom Farrell, director of Dominion, in a press release. "Together, we are committed to delivering safe, reliable, affordable and clean energy for the communities served by SCANA, and for maintaining its outstanding record of reliability and customer service. "

An hour after SCANA took over, Dominion announced that SCANA's CEO, Jimmy Addison, was on his departure, and was appointed a current top executive in Dominion

Rodney Blevins, a 54-year-old Virginia Tech and Duke University graduate , has been Dominion Energy's senior vice president and chief information officer since 2014.

Addison, 58, SCANA's chief financial officer for 11 years before joining the CEO in January, will advise Blevins until Addison returns February 1, Dominion said.

"Jimmy Addison is respected throughout the energy and utility sector," Farrell said. "I warmly thank his leadership for the challenging times of the last 18 months. Jimmy has had an outstanding career at SCANA and we wish him well in retirement."

Wednesday's campaign closes a dark and uncertain chapter in SCANA's long and proud history .

The company's flagship subsidiary, SCE & G, began to power in 1846 as the Charleston Gas Light Company, and grew into South Carolina's largest homemade tool – a business loved one known for its reliability, philanthropy and legislative influence.

But that was all before July 2017, when the company's $ 9 billion effort to build two more nuclear reactors at the VC Summer Nuclear Station in Fairfield County went up. The sudden collapse hit legislators and furious SCE & G customers who – after nine hikes – have paid more than $ 2 billion in higher power bills for the useless reactors.

After months of litigation and investigative hearings, Dominion claimed last January with an offer to buy out SCANA, lower prices and refund SCE & G's electrical customers some of what they had paid against VC Sommer.

A year of bragging between Dominion and SC lawmakers, regulators and tax consultants led to SC's public service commission decision last year that approved Dominion's plan to buy SCANA and lowered SCE & G's electrical prices by about 15 percent – or or $ 22 a month for the typical home customer.

"Today, a significant milestone marks in the history of Dominion Energy and SCANA," said SCANA CEO Jimmy Addison in a statement. "Employees of our respective companies have worked hard for months on integration planning and I am sure it will lead to a smooth transition. These two companies share common values ​​and this combination gives SCANA's business scope and stability to meet customers' growing energy needs In the years to come, I am particularly proud that, despite the intense efforts that went into the planning of integration and the approval of the combination of companies over the past year, employees throughout our three-state region maintained their focus on providing energy to our customers safely and reliably. We will now turn the ground with Dominion Energy and embrace change. "

Power bills under Dominion will be a few cents lower than what SCE & G customers have been used to paying since this summer when the General Assembly Temporarily slashed the tool's nuclear inflated prices by nearly 15 percent.

Dominion sealed the deal on Wednesday despite appeals from a handful of groups requesting SC's public service commission to rethink several parts of its last order as approved SCANA buyout.

These complaints were not expected to impede the Dominion agreement.

Dominion was already the fourth largest electric and gas tool in America. It now has 7.5 million customers in 18 states. It etched a small foothold in South Carolina in 2014 when it bought Carolina Gas Transmission Corp. – A 1,500-mile interstate gas pipeline with approximately 115 employees – from SCANA.

Now, it adds South Carolina's largest home-made tool in SCE & G and Two SCANA natural gas subsidiaries: SCANA Energy in Georgia and PSNC Energy in Georgia.

"The grants to SCANA make sense of geography and work well with our core energy companies," Farrell said. "These are well-run, regulated operations that we expect will help improve Dominion Energy's risk profile and growth outlook."