Southern Company to Acquire 600 Megawatt Power Plant

/PRNewswire/ -- Southern Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company that acquires, builds, manages and owns wholesale generation assets, today announced that it has entered into an Acquisition Agreement with an affiliate of LS Power to acquire 100 percent ownership interest in West Georgia Generating Company, LLC, which has a plant located in Thomaston, Ga.

The Thomaston plant is a peaking facility with four gas-fired combustion turbines with total capacity of approximately 600 megawatts. Capacity from two of the four units is sold through long-term power purchase agreements with the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and the Georgia Energy Cooperative.

In addition to the acquisition of the West Georgia facility, the agreement includes the acquisition by LS Power of a 100 percent ownership interest of Southern Power's DeSoto County Generating Company, LLC which has a plant located in Arcadia, Fla. The DeSoto plant consists of two combustion turbine units with a combined capacity of 320 megawatts.

The closing of the transaction is subject to several conditions including all pending regulatory approvals.

"This acquisition fits well into Southern Company's strategy of continuing to meet energy demand with an increasingly diverse generation mix," said David Ratcliffe, chairman, president and CEO, Southern Company.

"This transaction reinforces Southern Power's disciplined strategy to acquire and/or build generating assets for which the output is significantly covered by long-term bi-lateral contracts in the wholesale market," said Southern Power President Ronnie Bates. "This agreement represents a growth opportunity that is a good fit for Southern Power."

LS Power is a power generation, transmission and investment group with a proven track record of successful development activities, operations management and commercial execution. LS Power has been involved in the development, construction, or operations of over 20,000 MW of power generation throughout the United States.

Southern Power is among the largest wholesale energy providers in the Southeast, meeting the electricity needs of municipalities, electric cooperatives and investor-owned utilities. The company owns and operates more than 7,500 megawatts with facilities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina and has an additional 820 megawatts committed to construction in North Carolina and Texas.

With 4.4 million customers and more than 42,000 megawatts of generating capacity, Atlanta-based Southern Company (NYSE:SO) is the premier energy company serving the Southeast. A leading U.S. producer of electricity, Southern Company owns electric utilities in four states and a growing competitive generation company, as well as fiber optics and wireless communications. Southern Company brands are known for excellent customer service, high reliability and retail electric prices that are below the national average. Southern Company is consistently listed among the top U.S. electric service providers in customer satisfaction by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Visit our Web site at www.southerncompany.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements:

Certain information contained in this release is forward-looking information based on current expectations and plans that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking information includes, among other things, plans and estimated costs for new generation resources for the Company and growth opportunities for the Company. The Company cautions that there are certain factors that can cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking information that has been provided. The reader is cautioned not to put undue reliance on this forward-looking information, which is not a guarantee of future performance and is subject to a number of uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside the control of the Company; accordingly, there can be no assurance that such suggested results will be realized. The following factors, in addition to those discussed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008, and subsequent securities filings, could cause results to differ materially from management expectations as suggested by such forward-looking information: the impact of recent and future federal and state regulatory change, including legislative and regulatory initiatives regarding deregulation and restructuring of the electric utility industry, implementation of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, environmental laws including regulation of water quality and emissions of sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, carbon, soot, or particulate matter and other substances, and also changes in tax and other laws and regulations to which the Company and its subsidiaries are subject, as well as changes in application of existing laws and regulations; current and future litigation, regulatory investigations, proceedings, or inquiries, including Federal Energy Regulatory Commission matters; the effects, extent, and timing of the entry of additional competition in the markets in which the Company operates; variations in demand for electricity, including those relating to weather, the general economy, population and business growth (and declines), and the effects of energy conservation measures; available sources and costs of fuels; effects of inflation; internal restructuring or other restructuring options that may be pursued; potential business strategies, including acquisitions or dispositions of assets or businesses, which cannot be assured to be completed or beneficial to the Company; the ability of counterparties of the Company to make payments as and when due and to perform as required; the ability to obtain new short- and long-term contracts with wholesale customers; the direct or indirect effect on the Company's business resulting from terrorist incidents and the threat of terrorist incidents; interest rate fluctuations and financial market conditions and the results of financing efforts, including the Company's credit ratings; the ability of the Company to obtain additional generating capacity at competitive prices; catastrophic events such as fires, earthquakes, explosions, floods, hurricanes, droughts, pandemic health events such as an avian or other influenza, or other similar occurrences; the direct or indirect effects on the Company's business resulting from incidents similar to the August 2003 power outage in the Northeast; and the effect of accounting pronouncements issued periodically by standard setting bodies. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking information.

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