Vega Accepting Bids for Construction of Georgia Manufacturing Plant

/PRNewswire/ -- VEGA PROMOTIONAL SYSTEMS, INC. (Pink OTC: VGPR) announced today it is accepting bids for the construction of its Georgia fuel pellet manufacturing plant.

The proposed 40,000 square foot manufacturing facility will be located in Tifton, Georgia and will manufacture energy efficient pellet fuel from organic waste bi-products located within the State.

The Company will capitalize on the abundance of biomass in Georgia's Bioenergy Corridor and when completed, the new facility will have the capacity to produce several hundred thousand metric tons of biomass fuel pellets annually.

The State of Georgia ranks third in the nation as a potential source of renewable energy. The amount of privately owned forests in Georgia, more than any other state in the country, is the reason for the State's ranking.

The Company recently announced it is seeking financial assistance from the State of Georgia to build its manufacturing plant. When complete, the facility will create nearly 200 direct or indirect green jobs and address state energy priorities to adopt emerging renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

Parties interested in bidding on the construction of the plant should visit the Company's website at www.vegabiofuels.com for more information and to receive a detailed bid package.

The Company will announce additional details about the Georgia manufacturing plant as the project moves forward.

Certain statements in this release constitute forward-looking statements or statements which may be deemed or construed to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The words "forecast," "project," "intend," "expect" "should," "would," and similar expressions and all statements, which are not historical facts, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause the Company's actual results, performance (finance or operating) or achievements to differ from future results, performance (financing and operating) or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

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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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Oglethorpe Power Purchases Biomass Site in Warren County

/PRNewswire/ -- Oglethorpe Power Corporation today closed on the purchase of a 355-acre tract in Warren County, Ga., for a proposed biomass electric generating plant. The Warren County site, off East Warrenton Road, was one of five Georgia tracts optioned by Oglethorpe Power last fall as potential sites for two, and possibly three, planned 100-megawatt biomass facilities.

All five sites that were identified appear to meet project criteria. Following several months of further study, two of those sites, located in Warren and Appling Counties, are preliminarily identified as preferred locations for the first two biomass plants. A third site under option in Echols County remains in consideration as an alternative to the two preliminarily preferred sites, or as the site for a potential third plant. Oglethorpe Power also retains options on two alternative sites in Washington County.

Although preliminarily preferred, the sites in Warren and Appling Counties cannot be considered final until they undergo an independent environmental review and evaluation as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. This process, which will examine all the alternative sites, will include several public meetings near the preferred sites to gather input on environmental issues.

Oglethorpe Power Chief Operating Officer Michael W. Price said the environmental review will take place over the next 18-24 months. During this time, Oglethorpe Power will also be working with the state Environmental Protection Division to begin the process of obtaining the necessary environmental permits.

"This purchase of land in Warren County is an important milestone as our plans to build and operate Georgia's largest group of biomass generating plants continue to move forward," Price said. "These plants will have a very positive economic impact on the host communities and surrounding regions while bringing much-needed, renewable energy to EMC consumers throughout the state."

The biomass plants will generate electricity by burning a woody biomass mixture expected to consist primarily of whole tree chips and chipped pulpwood, along with wood waste from saw mills and wood remaining in the forest after clearing. Each plant will require a capital investment of $400 million to $500 million. Several hundred workers will be employed during construction, with about 40 permanent jobs required for operating each plant. In addition, an estimated 400 to 500 more jobs per plant could be generated within the forest industry to gather and transport the more than one million tons of wood chips expected to be required annually to fuel each plant.

Price said Oglethorpe Power expects to begin construction on the first plant in 2011, followed by commercial operation by the summer of 2014. The second plant will be placed into service in early 2015. A decision will be made later on whether a third plant will be built. If so, it would also go into service in 2015.

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DIRTT adds new assembly plant in Savannah, GA

/PRNewswire/ -- DIRTT stands for Doing It Right This Time. That now includes setting up a new assembly plant in Savannah, Georgia to build the company's modular, movable walls. The new 81,000-square-foot DIRTT Environmental Solutions (www.dirtt.net) assembly plant is located at 155 Knowlton Way in the Crossroads Business Center. DIRTT will be the first tenant in this state-of-the-art industrial facility. The new plant is slated to open in the spring of 2009. Job fairs will be held in the Savannah area in the meantime.

DIRTT Walls are used for office interiors as an alternative to conventional studs and drywall construction. The walls support furniture and can be tilted down and moved to a new location when change occurs in the office, providing a more sustainable solution than building on-site, then demolishing walls only to build them again. DIRTT is the recipient of several environmental and design awards, and is in thousands of projects because of the walls' function, aesthetics and custom abilities.

The choice of Savannah for their second plant (the first being in Calgary, Canada) is a logical progression of the company's mandate. "We have the word 'Environmental' in our name," says CEO Mogens Smed from DIRTT Environmental Solutions in Calgary. "By setting up in Savannah we are much closer to our key eastern markets, and we can take advantage of existing rail lines and shipping lanes for delivery. It is an important component of our business' environmental leadership."

The proximity to clients is also helpful in DIRTT's mission of hospitality. As an immigrant from Denmark, Smed believes in the tradition of getting to know a client personally. "We host our potential clients in Calgary so they understand who we really are and how we will respond to their needs," explains Smed. "But a long flight with a passport check can be daunting. By having a Client Center in Savannah we'll make it an easier trip for them."

DIRTT is looking forward to hiring employees in a region where manufacturing is a typical industry. Already there are 226 manufacturing plants in the Savannah area and a labor force of over 161,000 in the county. Due to the design nature of their products, DIRTT is also enthusiastic about the city's culture and nearby Savannah College of Art & Design.

"SEDA (Savannah Economic Development Authority) and The Creative Coast Alliance would like to be the first to welcome DIRTT as Savannah's newest innovative and environmentally conscious member of our community," says SEDA President Rick Winger. "DIRTT represents the future - in terms of their industry and the direction Savannah's economy is headed."

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