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Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s largest public power provider, has implemented Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service to enhance customer operations for its electric account holders. By moving its customer platform to the cloud together with its existing Oracle’s SaaS meter solution, the utility now has a modern customer platform to increase system reliability and free resources for service innovation. Already, Santee Cooper’s nightly billing processes are running on average three hours faster and communication overhead between modules has been drastically reduced. Red Clay's optimization work also reduced the daily batch job schedule in half, from 13 hours to 6.5 hours, delivering immediate operational improvements and cost savings.
Established in 1934, Santee Cooper is a not-for-profit, state-owned utility committed to community wellbeing and sustainable service delivery. The organization provides a broad spectrum of services, including wholesale and retail electric generation, transmission, distribution, and wholesale water sales. The utility’s customer base includes over 200,000 retail electric customers.
“Oracle’s cloud platform has rapidly improved our customer and metering operations, empowering us to increase dedicated resources for priority customer service and growth initiatives,” said Christy Wyndham, Director of Technology Strategy and Gov Office, Santee Cooper. “Thanks to our partners at Oracle and Red Clay who supported us every step of the way, we were able to navigate this transition smoothly and confidently.”
A simplified cloud path
With its on-premises Oracle customer care and billing systems approaching end of life, Santee Cooper desired a consolidated platform for higher operational efficiency, particularly for batch processing and system synchronization. Having moved to the SaaS-based Oracle Utilities Meter Solution Cloud Service in 2021, the utility knew that a cloud-based system would provide the automation and reliable communication to help address complex operations while also reducing the cost of system upgrades and maintenance.
After and thorough evaluation, Santee Cooper chose Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service for its comprehensive utility meter-to-cash solution that has been proven to securely scale, while helping to eliminate complex infrastructure management across hundreds of utilities worldwide. With integrated Customer Information System (CIS) and Meter Data Management System (MDMS) capabilities in one solution, the utility can now help keep its customer platform current and free utility resources to focus on innovation such as prepaid services and additional, self-service customer capabilities.
For example, the shift to an integrated platform consolidated Santee Cooper’s billing, customer management, and operational processes, reducing synchronization issues. Additionally, by leveraging out-of-the-box functionality, the utility has minimized custom developments to simplify future upgrades. Red Clay, a member of Oracle PartnerNetwork, delivered the groundbreaking project on the original timeline with no schedule delays, demonstrating the firm's commitment to predictable, reliable project execution.
“This project demonstrates what's possible when you combine deep technical expertise, proven accelerator tools, and a true partnership approach,” said Paul Marnell, CEO, Red Clay Consulting. “Our team is proud to have worked alongside Santee Cooper and Oracle to deliver a transformation that positions this utility for decades of innovation and operational excellence.”
Driving systematic success
Santee Cooper now benefits from enhanced system reliability. For example, Oracle’s unified platform has helped eliminate synchronization errors and downtime risks associated with operating the CIS and MDMS systems separately. Red Clay also developed over 200 automated test scripts using the Oracle Utilities Test Automation (OUTA) tool included in Santee Cooper’s license, enabling seamless adoption of semi-annual cloud releases.
The simplified architecture has also reduced Santee Cooper’s ongoing maintenance, upgrade efforts, and system complexity, translating into lower lifecycle costs. By rationalizing nearly 2,000 customizations and leveraging the Oracle solution’s native functionality, Red Clay positioned Santee Cooper for significantly lower future upgrade costs, now projected to be 30-40% less expensive compared to legacy systems.
“Santee Cooper’s successful transition to Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service exemplifies how strategic cloud migration can transform utility operations, enhancing performance and customer service capabilities,” said Mark Webster, senior vice president for Oracle Infrastructure Industries. “As a result, Santee Cooper can now streamline complex customer operations and reduce cost to serve with an all-in-one platform that helps eliminate silos and accelerate meter-to-cash delivery.”
About Santee Cooper
For more than 90 years, Santee Cooper (santeecooper.com) has been serving the people of South Carolina. The utility is South Carolina’s largest power provider, and the ultimate source of electricity for 2 million people across the state. Through its affordable, reliable, and environmentally responsible electricity and water services, and through innovative partnerships and initiatives that attract and retain industry and jobs, Santee Cooper helps power South Carolina. To learn more, visit santeecooper.com and follow #PoweringSC on social media.
About Red Clay Consulting
Focused solely on the utility industry Red Clay (redclay.com) advises, delivers, and manages technical and business solutions based on their clients’ unique needs. Red Clay works hand in hand with Oracle to offer our clients the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible software platform. Red Clay’s strong partnership with Oracle Utilities provides our clients innovative and proven solutions.
About Oracle
Oracle (oracle.com) offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud.
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