Southern Company Profile

www.southernco.com   Territory: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Florida (120,000 square miles) Headquarters:  Atlanta, GA President, CEO, Chairman:  David M. Ratcliffe Employees:  26,000 Ownership: Publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (SO).   2008 Earnings: $1.74 billion   Divisions / Subsidiaries ·  Alabama Power ·  Georgia Power ·  Gulf Power ·  Mississippi Power ·  Southern Power, a wholesale energy provider ·  Southern Nuclear ·  Southern LINC Wireless ·  Southern Telecom Customers ·  4.3 million electric   Assets ·  27,000 miles transmission ·  3,400 substations ·  300,000 acres right-of-way 42,000 MW generation (35,000 regulated; 5,500 wholesale)   Read more   Foster Folly News: Gulf Power and Ledman Construction build EarthCents Home   Associated Press: Georgia Power may get nuclear nod   Tuscaloosa News: Alabama miners nervous about the future of coal

Southern Company has been serving electricity customers in the Southeast for more than 100 years and today the Atlanta-based concern is one of the largest electricity producers in the nation.

It operates 73 power plants; most are coal but its portfolio includes three nuclear plants as well as facilities that generate energy from oil, gas and hydro. Serving one of the nation’s fastest growing regions, Southern has 42,000 MW of generating capacity in service or under construction, powering 4.3 million electric customers in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and the Florida panhandle. The company takes pride in its financial performance and long run of dividend payments to shareholders.

In conjunction with KBR, Southern has further developed the gasification process to work more efficiently with low-rank coals that have less energy per pound but account for half of worldwide reserves.  The company is also pursuing new nuclear technologies.

Like other utility companies, Southern must figure out how to add generating capacity to meet future demand; it expects to add more than 1.1 million customers by 2025. But plant siting issues plague Southern. Growth in the Southeast increases demand for more generating capacity, but no one wants a coal or nuclear plant next door. A 2008 report listed one of Southern’s Alabama coal plants as the top mercury emitter in the U.S. and in Mississippi environmentalists aren’t buying the notion of clean coal plants. If the Obama administration determines carbon emissions are a pollutant it could be costly for Southern

Smart Grid

Southern is spread out over four jurisdictions with very different requirements.  At this time it appears that Alabama and Georgia will be the first states to implement Southern's roadmap. A stated goal of the AMI deployment phase (2008 and beyond) is to get back to business as usual, reduce revenue requirements and “capture the value of other business functions” such as distribution and marketing. 

Georgia Power as of Jan. 09 has deployed over 500,000 AMI meters using Itron’s MDM/Centron solution and plans to install smart metering for all 2.3 million electricity customers by 2012. The utility is also conducting an exercise in suburban Atlanta to install 35,000 meters to deliver hourly interval data.

Alabama Power has a rollout plan that has the state divided into sections, with rollout of smart metering underway and expected completion for all 1.4 million customers in 2011.

Gulf Power announced a comprehensive conservation initiative in Dec. 08 that includes interactive thermostats and smart meters, free home energy audits and cash incentives. Besides reducing greenhouse gases, the utility expects the program to delay the need for building new power plants in the future as Florida continues to grow.

In March 2009 the company announced it had installed 1 million meters on its way to 4.4 million. Southern projects its total intelligent metering infrastructure (IMI) project cost at $280 million, as detailed in a 2008 FERC report.

Renewables

Nearly 20 renewable energy R&D research projects are in progress, including one that uses switch grass as a biomass fuel and another that is studying the viability of offshore wind turbines in the Southeast.

Georgia Power and Alabama Power are currently conducting pilot-scale, solar photovoltaic system demonstration projects to help determine the most promising PV technology for the hot, humid southeastern U.S. Also, Georgia Power is converting a coal plant into one of the largest biomass plants in the nation.

For vendors only …

The company is entrenched and has established partners in many projects. But Southern is also spread out over four jurisdictions with very different requirements.  They will be very receptive to anyone who can help them implement core elements that can be leveraged by their individual utilities.