General Managers Message

The Bamberg Board of Public Works began providing services to its citizens and the surrounding community in 1905. Now over 100 years later, our Public Power Utility continues to provide exceptional reliable electric, water, wastewater and gas services to our City and surrounding customer base in Bamberg County, SC.

One question we sometimes hear is whether a municipal utility has the resources to provide reliable service and timely restoration in the event of a natural disaster. In fact, community-owned utilities have an exceptional track record and BPW’s service reliability is supported by our local presence and our statewide alliances with other municipal utilities.

At BPW we live in this community, and we know the area and its residents. If you ever have a problem with your service, you can call and talk to someone right here in town. When we dispatch our crews to take care of a problem, they get there quickly because they live nearby, work here, and they know their town and its systems.

Municipal utilities work together to combine the personal service of a local utility with the resources of a statewide organization. If we are ever hit by a major storm, our utility participates in a mutual aid agreement with other municipal utilities statewide. If we take a hit, they will come help us, and if they're hit, we can help them. We have existing agreements in place with municipal utilities in other states, so we can be sure to have the resources we need, even in a worst-case scenario. It is just one of many examples of how municipal utilities work together for the shared benefit of their communities.

We also leverage our expertise when we purchase our bulk electric power and gas supply to deliver the best wholesale rate to our City gates. Our Board of Directors is committed to investing dollars in our infrastructure to constantly upgrade and modernize the equipment that delivers your retail energy, water, gas supply and removal of wastewater. While our customer information feedback system is not completely automated at this time, we are making great strides to put in place this framework for the future. In the meantime, we encourage all our customers to contact us directly with any questions or concerns, and to report outages any time of the day or night using our contact center. Our crews are dedicated to serving our customers in a safe and efficient manner in every aspect of their job. While some restoration efforts may take longer than others, remember the integrity of the grid and infrastructure must be maintained. Every effort is made to switch and reconfigure the system to minimize the number of customers inconvenienced during extended outage repairs, or scheduled upgrades to the system.

Many programs are available to our customers including balanced budget payment options, online payment processes, and many more. On a larger scale, our utility is making strides in automated proactive communication technology related to restoration status. By 2024 all our metering endpoints will be equipped with AMI architecture allowing us to begin presenting expanded Web portal real time consumption data to our customer base. We will be launching a new website in the fall of 2023 to better educate and connect us with you. We are actively pursuing both Federal and State Infrastructure Grant funding investment dollars on your behalf for improvements to your water system. Our customer service lobby is there to assist and answer any questions you may have for both Residential and Commercial applications.

We are confident in our direction and vision for our service territory for today and tomorrow. As we grow and welcome new customers to our utility grid, we will be prepared to provide reliable, sustainable energy, clean water, natural gas and wastewater services to meet their needs as we have done over the past 100 years. Our organization is built on the three pillars of Safety, Mutual Respect, and Integrity with the vision to become “The Best Small Rural Utility in South Carolina”.
Our entire team looks forward to exceeding your expectations in the years ahead.

Gregg Griffin
General Manager
Bamberg Board of Public Works