Megawatts and Markets

Based in Atlanta, Southern Company is one of the largest generators of electricity in the nation, serving both regulated and competitive markets across the southeastern United States. We participate in all phases of the electric utility business with more than 42,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity and a grid of transmission and distribution lines that would more than circle the earth. Southern Company and its subsidiaries have been serving the Southeast for more than 100 years.

Southern Company provides retail electric service as regulated by the public service commissions in the states we serve and by federal energy agencies. Public service commissions determine fair electric rates, oversee what project costs can be recovered (for environmental controls or plant construction), and define the profit margin utilities can make in retail markets. Our four electric utilities – Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, and Mississippi Power – serve more than 4.3 million retail customers (through December 2006).

We also sell power in the wholesale market and transmit wholesale power for other providers. Southern Power, our higher-growth competitive wholesale generation business comprises more than 6,700 megawatts. In all Southern Company generation serves about 75 investor-owned utilities, electric cooperatives, and municipalities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and the Carolinas.

Southern Company has responsibility for approximately $5.4 billion in transmission assets including more than 27,000 miles of transmission lines, 3,400 substations, and more than 300,000 acres of right of way. The transmission system meets North American Electric Reliability Council standards and provides a safe and reliable grid. We plan, design, build, operate, and maintain our system to meet growing demand, budgeting $2.3 billion in transmission expenditures through 2008.

Other major subsidiaries and business units include Southern Nuclear, the licensed operator of Southern Company’s three nuclear generating plants in Alabama and Georgia; SouthernLINC Wireless, a communications network with about 300,000 subscribers in the Southeast; and Southern Telecom, a fiber optic wholesaler in the Southeast.

To operate successfully, we balance the earnings interests of shareholders; rates and reliability interests of customers; growth and impact interests of communities; and policy interests of regulators. With financial success, we have the operating income to meet our environmental, workplace, and community responsibilities.