Southern Company

Southern Company can be traced back to 1924, when Southeastern Power & Light was formed as a holding company for Alabama Traction, Light and Power (formed 1906), the immediate forerunner of Alabama Power. Later that year, it formed Mississippi Power as a subsidiary, with Gulf Power following in 1925. In 1926, it merged with Georgia Power (formed 1902).

In 1930, Southeastern Power & Light merged into the Commonwealth & Southern Corporation. The new system included five Northern companies and six Southern companies. However, in the late 1940s Commonwealth & Southern was dissolved to meet the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935. Four of Commonwealth & Southern's Deep South operating companies—Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, and Mississippi Power—were deemed to be an integrated system and thus were allowed to remain under common ownership. A new holding company, Southern Company, was incorporated in Delaware on November 9, 1945. It commenced operation in 1949, and moved to Georgia in 1950. In 1954–55, the company was involved in the Dixon-Yates contract with the Atomic Energy Commission, and the associated political controversy.

In 1981, Southern Company became the first electric utility holding company in 46 years to diversify its operations by forming an unregulated subsidiary. In January 1982, Southern Energy, Inc., began official operations as a global energy company, growing to serve 10 countries on four continents. On April 2, 2001, Southern Company completed the spinoff of Southern Energy as Mirant Corporation. Another Southern Company subsidiary—Southern Nuclear—began providing services in 1991 to the system's nuclear power plants.

In 1996, Southern Communications Services began providing digital wireless communications services to Southern Company's subsidiaries and also began marketing these services to the public within the Southeast as Southern Linc. Southern Telecom, a telecommunications subsidiary of Southern Company, was founded in 1997. Southern Telecom provides colocation and dark fiber optic lines to network businesses. On January 9, 2001, Southern Company received final approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to form Southern Power, a subsidiary to own, manage and finance wholesale generating assets in the Southeast. The new subsidiary targets wholesale customers. On July 19, 2002, Southern Company Gas received certification from the Georgia Public Service Commission to enter the retail gas market. After nearly four years of operations, the company was sold and customers transferred to Cobb EMC's newly formed affiliate, Gas South. In 2011, Southern Company and Turner Renewable Energy purchased a 30 MW solar project from First Solar. Located in Cimarron, New Mexico, it began generating electricity in 2011. In June 2012, the Nacogdoches Generating Facility began its commercial operation. The facility is a 115 MW biomass-fueled electric generating plant, located near Sacul in Nacogdoches County, Texas.

In 2016, Southern Company acquired PowerSecure, a distributed energy infrastructure technologies company, and AGL Resources (which was renamed Southern Company Gas). The takeover of AGL was valued at $12 billion, including $8 billion of equity. As a result of the AGL Resources merger, Southern Company doubled its customer base to approximately 9 million and expanded its footprint and broadened the scope of its business by increasing its natural gas presence. In 2018, Southern Company sold Gulf Power and its gas plant shares of 100% in Plant Oleander and 65% in Stanton Energy Center to NextEra for $6.5 billion.

In September 2023, it was announced Southern Company's subsidiary, Southern Power had acquired the 200MW Millers Branch Solar Facility in Haskell County, Texas from EDF Renewables North America, for an undisclosed amount.

In February 2026, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) awarded a $26.54 billion loan to Southern Company, the largest loan in DOE's history. The loan will finance 16 GW of power, including about 5 GW of new natural gas generation, 6 GW of nuclear upgrades and license renewals, hydropower modernization, battery energy storage systems, and 1,300 miles of transmission infrastructure and grid enhancement projects. The loan will be split between subsidiaries Georgia Power receiving $22.4 billion and Alabama Power receiving $4.1 billion.

Plant Vogtle

Southern Company subsidiaries operate hydroelectric, gas, coal, and nuclear generation sources to generate approximately 200 terawatt-hours of electricity. In 2009, coal represented 57 percent of the company's output, followed by nuclear (23%) and natural gas (16%). Renewable hydroelectric power represented 4 percent of Southern's generation. Coal-based generation dropped significantly in 2009 from an average of 70% between 2005 and 2008. As of 2017 Coal-based generation had dropped to 30%.

In June 2010, the United States Department of Energy awarded an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to facilitate the construction of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, near Augusta, Georgia. A Southern Company subsidiary, Georgia Power, owns 45.7% of the current 2,430 MW facility, with co-owners Oglethorpe Power (30%) Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (22.7%) and the City of Dalton (1.6%). The plant is operated by Georgia Power. The $14 billion construction project is scheduled to be completed by 2022 and would double the plant's capacity.

The construction of two 1,154 MW reactors has been hailed by Energy Secretary Steven Chu as "the first new nuclear power plant to break ground in decades". It is expected to create up to 3,500 jobs during the construction phase, and 800 once operational. However, in March 2017 Westinghouse Electric Company, who were building the plant, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because of $9 billion of losses from its two U.S. nuclear construction projects. The U.S. government had given $8.3 billion of loan guarantees on the financing of the four nuclear reactors being built in the U.S., and it is expected a way forward to completing the plant can be agreed.

Commercial operations of the plant’s Unit 3 began in July 2023, while Unit 4’s commercial operations began in April 2024. The added reactors will supply enough energy for about 1 million customers.

Controversies

Environmental impact

Southern Company is the third-largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, emitting 86,244,286 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019. In 2005, the company announced it would open a Mercury Research Center at Plant Crist Pensacola, Florida, hoping to find new ways to reduce mercury emissions. On April 25, 2006, Alabama Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, agreed to pay $200M to settle allegations that its coal-fired James H. Miller, Jr. Plant near West Jefferson, Alabama emitted harmful amounts of SO2 and NOx.

In response to growing public and financial community interest, the company has enacted assorted environmental measures. Southern Company participates in Renew Our Rivers, a volunteer program to remove debris from rivers and other waterways throughout the Southeast, which claims over 11 million pounds of trash removed or recycled in Renew Our Rivers events. The company also manages and operates the National Carbon Capture Center, a focal point of the US Department of Energy's efforts to develop carbon capture and greenhouse gas reduction technologies, under which various projects to test geologic sequestration are in progress at Plant Gorgas in Alabama, Plant Daniel in Mississippi and other company sites. However, critics have argued that CCS seldom works and prolongs the life of fossil fuels.

Climate change denial

Southern Company has a long history of funding climate change denial and has been a "driving force behind climate disinformation", sponsoring campaigns in opposition to climate science, against limiting greenhouse gas emissions, and slowing the transition to renewable energy sources.

Between 1993 and 2004 Southern Company paid over $62 million to organizations that spread disinformation about climate change. The utility paid for advertising claiming that climate change was not real and made payments to public relations companies, industry groups, law firms and thinktanks to dispute the scientific consensus for climate change and attack legislative solutions. The utility paid $20 million to the trade group Edison Electric Institute, which creates media campaigns to attack proponents of global warming. In the 1990s, Southern Company and the Center for Energy and Economic Development hosted energy workshops broadcast to schoolteachers through the company's satellite network to promote pro-coal messages about climate change and the environment.

Southern Company had spent more than $135 million from 2010 to 2020 on lobbying at a federal level.

Kemper Project controversies

In February 2015, the Mississippi Supreme Court ordered Southern Company's subsidiary Mississippi Power to restore $377 million to South Mississippi ratepayers for rate increases related to the Kemper Project, a "clean" coal plant. These fees were derived from Mississippi's Baseload Act, allowing Mississippi Power to charge ratepayers for powerplants under construction.