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Digging Deep on Utility Costs
Volunteer John Ruoff focuses on consumers
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When Dominion Energy asks to increase its profit level, John Ruoff is there. When a Duke Energy proposal could shift financial risk from shareholders to customers, Ruoff is there. If a utility request could significantly bump up bills, he is there.
A self-described nerd, Ruoff serves as AARP South Carolina’s lead volunteer on state utility issues and is a fixture at the State House. He fights to keep utilities affordable and reliable for residential ratepayers, including more than 600,000 AARP members.
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The 77-year-old Columbia resident is an anomaly. Utility details — often technical and complex — can cause the Average Joe to zone out. Ruoff, on the other hand, has maintained a dogged interest for decades.
“Well, it’s important to do, and somebody’s got to do it,” he says in his signature, matter-of-fact way.
AN EYE ON LEGISLATION
Ruoff began his utility advocacy work a year after moving to South Carolina from Illinois. Through years of self-study, he grew into a recognized utilities expert and has represented various nonprofits on the subject.
For AARP, he reviews utility-related proposals and legislation, shares expert testimony with decision-makers, writes editorials, speaks to community groups and helps prepare educational materials for members.
“He’s well-known and well respected,” says Jo Pauling-Jones, AARP South Carolina’s associate state director of advocacy and outreach who works with Ruoff on utility issues. He testifies in a way both utility executives and regular people can understand, she adds.
He’s also a very determined advocate.
“I think he’s a bulldog,” says Nikki Hutchison, an AARP South Carolina associate state director of advocacy. “John does not back down.”
Ruoff’s years-long focus was shaped during time as a community organizer, knocking on doors in low-income neighborhoods. To pay their electric bills, residents often skimped on essentials like heating and cooling, food, prescriptions and medical care.
AI BOOM PROMPTS WORRIES
One case Ruoff is particularly proud of dates back to 2019, when Duke Energy Carolinas asked to raise its basic facilities charge from about $8 to $28 a month. Consumer advocates, including Ruoff, beat the charge down to about $12.
In its ruling, South Carolina’s Public Service Commission labeled utility executives “tone deaf” for proposing the hefty increase given its potential to harm older, disabled, low-income and low-use residents.
This year, Ruoff fought Dominion Energy’s request for a higher profit level and facility charges that could have cost a typical household an extra $20 a month. Dominion settled for an increase of about $12.
Another focus of late has been to urge South Carolina officials to develop a responsible plan for data center development. The centers, popping up across the country to power an artificial intelligence boom, should pay for themselves and not shift the cost of infrastructure improvements and massive electric use to residential customers, he says.
AIM IS TO HELP CONSUMERS
Ruoff says he’s learned to appreciate incremental changes, which are more common than big wins.
A Navy brat, Ruoff grew up mostly in the Northwest. He earned a doctorate in history from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Ruoff moved to South Carolina in 1978 and soon after began working on utility issues — including in Fairfield County, site of the proposed V.C. Summer nuclear power plant. Construction on the controversial project moved forward, but with improvements he helped fight for.
Ruoff pre-dates every AARP state office employee. He began collaborating with AARP around 2000 while working for South Carolina Fair Share, a former nonprofit focused on economic issues. The organizations shared positions on a number of issues, and he’d speak for both on occasion.
He’s served on a national AARP policy council and the AARP South Carolina Executive Council, advising the state office. For his contributions, Ruoff in 2022 earned AARP’s Andrus Award for Community Service, the top honor for state volunteers.
In addition to his work for AARP, Ruoff champions voting rights and has done analytical work for the League of Women Voters and the NAACP.
Ruoff spends his free time enjoying family and sports. He’s a fan of the WNBA, the University of South Carolina’s Gamecocks and his granddaughter’s high school lacrosse team.
And while he never used his doctorate to become a professor, Ruoff still sees himself as an educator.
Once, during a hearing, a state representative said, “ ‘John, I don’t always agree with you, but you always teach me something,’ ” Ruoff recalls.
“That could go on my headstone,” he says. “I’d be happy with that.”
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