For the protection of consumers and to ensure that the cost of DER programs do not exceed a reasonable threshold, the commission must not approve a DER plan in which the total incremental costs to be incurred by an electrical utility and recovered from the electrical utility's South Carolina retail customer classes exceeds the following annual amounts per number of accounts for costs that are incurred on or after January 1, 2014: residential: twelve dollars; commercial: one hundred twenty dollars; and industrial: twelve hundred dollars. The application of these caps to residential, commercial, and industrial accounts will be as set forth in the electrical utility's approved distributed energy resource program.
S.C. Code § 58-39-150
2014 Act No. 236, Section 9, provides as follows:
"SECTION 9. If the application of the provisions of this act to any wholesale electrical contract existing on the date of its adoption is determined to impair unlawfully any term of such contract or to add material costs to either party, then that contract will be exempt from the terms of this act to the extent necessary to cure such impairment or to avoid the imposition of additional material costs."