Greenville Utilities proposes rate adjustments; flags PFAS treatment, AMI and $9.1M city transfer

Greenville Utilities Commission (GUC) General Manager Tony Cannon presented the utility’s proposed FY 2025–26 budget and rate adjustments to Greenville City Council on May 8, saying the package balances affordability, reliability and capital needs while addressing new regulatory and wholesale‑power cost pressures.

Cannon proposed a 3.7% electric rate increase, a 6.5% sewer increase and a 4.9% gas increase in the coming fiscal year. He described major capital drivers that include a phased advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) replacement estimated at approximately $49 million over eight years, distribution and substation transformer replacements, and water‑filter upgrades to address PFAS. "We have detected, PFOA and PFOS in our system at 4 parts per trillion," Cannon told council, noting the EPA’s detection‑limit guidance and saying GUC has tested granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration and can reduce PFAS to below detection limits.

Cannon said GUC provides service to approximately 73,000 customer connections and has 517 employees; the utility has transferred roughly $71.3 million to the city over the last 10 years and plans a transfer of about $9.1 million in the coming year. He explained that purchased power and gas costs remain the largest budget driver and that the utility will use rate stabilization funds to smooth the impact on customers; GUC is spreading recent wholesale true‑up costs over multiple months to avoid a large one‑time hit (the current true‑up schedule covers 24 months and the first true up is scheduled to roll off April 1, 2026).

On capital and regulatory matters: Cannon said the new side of GUC’s expanded water plant (a "super pulsator") has not detected PFAS and that retrofitting older filters with GAC media will cost about $2.5 million for media replacement across 10 filters, with a quoted project estimate of about $5.5 million including related work. He described ongoing efforts to add local peak‑shaving generation (including a 10 MW project at McGregor Dam Substation), one‑megawatt battery storage dispatch savings and a community solar project at Bradford Creek under construction.

Cannon also reviewed long‑term risk from statewide generation planning: he said the Duke Energy generation plan would add capacity and change the resource mix, and that modeling suggests wholesale power costs could rise roughly 3.5%–4.5% per year absent offsets. The utility reported strong performance metrics (average outage duration ~80 minutes, customer satisfaction ~84%) and reiterated its long‑range plan to phase cost‑of‑service adjustments and system‑development fee increases over multiple years.

Council asked about PFAS levels, bookmobile and community contributions; Cannon said the utility expects to recover PFAS mitigation and other costs through the water fund and advised the council that many items are subject to further board consideration and to regulatory approvals. No formal rate adoption occurred at the May 8 meeting; the presentation fed the council’s FY 2025–26 budget review.