Georgia Power

Georgia Power

Type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: GAR
Industry	Utilities
Founded	1945
Headquarters	Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Key people	Paul Bowers (President & CEO)[1]
Number of employees	8,310 [2]
Website	www.GeorgiaPower.com

Georgia Power is an electric utility headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was established as the Georgia Railway and Power Company^[3] and began operations in 1902 running streetcars in Atlanta as a successor to the Atlanta Consolidated Street Railway Company.

Georgia Power is the largest of the four electric utilities that are owned and operated by Southern Company. Georgia Power is an investor-owned, tax-paying public utility that serves more than 2.25 million customers in all but four of Georgia's 159 counties.^[4] It employs approximately 9,000 workers throughout the state. The Georgia Power Building, its primary corporate office building, is located at 241 Ralph McGill Boulevard in downtown Atlanta.

In 2006 the Savannah Electric & Power Company, a separate subsidiary of Southern Company, was merged into Georgia Power.

History

Originally the Georgia Railway and Power Company, it began in 1902 as a company running the streetcars in Atlanta, and was the successor to the Atlanta Consolidated Street Railway Company. In the 1930s, the company published a free newsletter called Two Bells which was distributed on its streetcars; Two Bells was still distributed into the 1960s on the buses of successor Atlanta Transit Company (ATC). ^[5] From 1937 until 1950, Georgia Power also operated trolleybuses in Atlanta, and in 1950 its network of 31 electric bus routes was the largest trolley bus system in the United States.^[6] After the Atlanta transit strike of 1950, the Atlanta Transit Company took over operations. Atlanta Streetcar was formed in the 2000s to establish a new streetcar service along Peachtree Street.

The company built several dams, including the Morgan Falls Dam just north of the city, and some as far away as the Tallulah River in the northeast Georgia mountains. These hydroelectric dams form Lake Burton, Lake Seed, Lake Rabun, Lake Tallulah Falls, Lake Tugalo, and Lake Yonah, the last two of which straddle the Georgia – South Carolina border on the Tugaloo River.

Coal power

Georgia Power operates the Robert W. Scherer Power Plant, also known as "Plant Scherer," in Monroe County, Georgia. According to Natural History Magazine, as of 2006 Plant Scherer is the largest single point-source for carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.^[7] It was also ranked the 20th in the world in terms of carbon dioxide emissions by the Center for Global Development on its list of global power plants in November 2007. It was the only power plant in the United States that was listed in the world's top 25 Carbon Dioxide producers .

Transmission system

Georgia Power utilizes transmission lines carrying 115,000 volts, 230,000 volts and 500,000 volts. Georgia Power has interconnections with the Tennessee Valley Authority to the north, sister company Alabama Power to the west, South Carolina Electric and Gas and Duke Energy to the east, and Gulf Power (another sister company), Florida Power & Light, Progress Energy Florida and the city of Tallahassee, Florida to the south.

Transition to renewables

Georgia Power asked the state's public service commission for approval to convert the coal-fired Plant Mitchell to run on wood fuel. If approved, the retrofit would have begun in 2011 and the biomass plant would have started operating in mid-2012. The 96 MW (129,000 hp) biomass plant would have run on surplus wood from suppliers within a 100 mi (160 km) radius of the plant, which is located near Albany, Georgia. However, in 2014, the company announced it was decertifying the plant and intended to close its operations by April 2015.

Generating facilities

Georgia Power owns and operates a total of 44 generating plants which include hydroelectric dams, fossil fueled generating plants and nuclear power plants, which provide electricity to more than 2.4 million customers in all but four of Georgia's counties.^[8]

Hydroelectric dams

Georgia Power Hydro incorporates 19 hydro electric generating units to produce a generation capacity of 844,720 kilowatts (KW). Georgia Power Hydro facilities also provide more than 45,985 acres (18,609 ha) of water and more than 1,057 mi (1,701 km) of shoreline for habitat and recreational use.

Fossil fuel power plants

Nuclear power plants

Notes

References

• Kurtz, Wilber, "Technical Advisor: The Making of Gone With The Wind. The Hollywood Journals", Atlanta Historical Journal, Vol. XXII, No.2, Summer, 1978.

External links

• Georgia Power Official Site
• Southern Company
• Georgia Power Photographs Collection (ca. 1930-1949) from the collection of the Georgia Archives.