Duke Energy Carolinas is asking the N.C. utility regulators for a 12.6 percent increase, which adds about $11 per month to the average residential customer's bill. Meanwhile, South Carolina Electric & Gas Company (SCE&G), SCANA's principal subsidiary, has filed a request with the Public Service Commission (PSC) for an overall 1.1 percent increase to its electric power rates.

Even though Duke is asking for a 12.6 percent increase, far more than SCE&G's 1.1 percent, Duke is still the cheaper of the two. And Duke is voluntarily holding down its allowed return on common equity. Duke remains the lowest- cost electric utility in the region, which means it is also one of the lowest- cost utilities in the country.

Duke's increase in dollars for the coming year amounts to an additional $496 million from its N.C. ratepayers. Duke plans to seek rate increases in S.C. as well, but the utility won't submit its S.C. request probably for another month.

SCE&G's request for a 37 percent increase in February was approved by the PSC for phases over the next decade. SCE&G needs the increase to help carry its part of the cost of two new reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville. Santee- Cooper is also in on the two new reactors.

Together, the reactors are projected to cost $9.8 billion. By 2019, when both reactors should be fully operational, the average residential monthly bill from SCE&G should come to $147.11.

SCANA is S.C.'s only member among the Fortune 500, the state's largest publicly held corporation. Counting all its shares of stock outstanding and multiplying them by the value of one share, the market capitalization value of SCANA is $3.75 billion.

Doing the same with Duke, its market capitalization value is $18.15 billion, almost five times the value of SCANA. But Charlotte- based Duke used to be even bigger before it spun off its gas operations a few years ago into an entirely separate company based in Houston.

Duke is called a pure electricity play, while SCANA is still a cluster of interests with a heavy dose of natural gas and an even heavier dose of electric power.

There's another difference between the two utilities, and it has something to do with the way they work with their regulators. That kind of association began long ago, maybe a century ago when raising capital in the former Confederacy was a huge challenge. How, the question went, can central South Carolina attract capital to build the Lake Murray Dam?

The first iteration of the PSC could assure the share holder in what eventually became SCANA that the annual return for the share holder, the stock dividend, would come from the rate payer because the rates would be regulated for just that purpose. The dilapidated state of the state's economy was irrelevant. What was relevant to the electric power company share holder was the electricity rates were established with an eye on the return on common equity to assure the share holder of a safe investment and a decent dividend.

Dubbed the "widows' and orphans' stock," the share holder- owned electric power utility would never jump very far ahead of the stock exchange, but it would never fall back much, either, because the whole affair was so regulated.

In N.C., Duke's allowed return on common equity is about 8.5 percent. But surprisingly, or maybe even mysteriously, Duke made a return in 2008 of just 5.88 percent. Its last dividend paid to the share holder was $0.92 per share or a yield of 6.4 percent.

In S.C. SCE&G's portion of SCANA's return on common equity for 2008 was 9.18 percent, while its allowed return was 11 percent. But even with a higher actual return on common equity for 2008, SCANA's last dividend paid was $1.88 per share or a yield of 6.1 percent, which was less than Duke's 6.4 percent.

Funny business.

But it gets funnier. Duke bid for the electric power business in Orangeburg. Like Camden, Rock Hill, Austin, and Los Angeles, Orangeburg is a municipal electric power system where the city buys power in bulk and then distributes the power among its citizens. There is a tight margin between what the city pays for the power and what the city charges its citizens, and that tight margin is essentially a tax.

So the town of Orangeburg collects a tax off the churches, the schools, the county offices, all of the otherwise untaxed properties, which lowers the tax on property, just like in other municipal electric power cities.

Orangeburg has been buying its electric power from what is now SCE&G since 1919, but the town invited Duke to bid recently. Duke came back with an offer to sell electric power to Orangeburg over the next 10 years for $10 million less than the SCE&G deal.

The deal's in debate because the utility regulators in N.C. won't allow it. The N.C. regulators are afraid some support for Orangeburg might have to come from the Duke rate payers in N.C.

Orangeburg is a town of about 50,000 people. SCE&G's S.C. customers number about 650,000. If the 50,000 people of Orangeburg can save $10 million with Duke over 10 years, what could 650,000 customers do?