Advanced Generating Technologies

Coal
• Georgia Power is in the midst of a6 billion program to equip our coal-fired power plants with the latest environmental controls to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury. By 2015, our investments will have decreased emissions of sulfur dioxide by 93 percent, nitrogen oxides by 85 percent and mercury by 75 percent from 1990 levels.
• The United States has enough coal to last 250 years, and therefore coal should remain an important resource for our country's existing and future energy needs.
• Southern Company — in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy — is evaluating the feasibility of carbon capture and sequestration in deep underground formations.

Water Research Center
• Once completed in 2012, Georgia Power's Plant Bowen will be the site of a state-of-the-art water research facility. The Water Research Center (WRC) will provide a site for testing technologies to improve efficiency in water withdrawal, consumption, recycling and/or improve water quality associated with the power generation process.
• The WRC will include seven research focus areas: moisture recovery, cooling tower and advanced cooling systems, zero liquid discharge options, low volume wastewater treatment, solid waste landfill water management, carbon technology water issues, and water modeling, monitoring and best management practices.
• The center is a collaboration between Georgia Power and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and will be operated by Southern Research Institute (SRI) at Georgia Power's Plant Bowen near Cartersville, Ga.
• Results from research conducted at the WRC will be shared with Georgia Power and other EPRI members.
• The center is an extension of a pilot project that began in May 2010 at Plant Bowen to identify opportunities to address water withdrawals and consumption. As a result of the pilot, technology has been implemented to reduce water withdrawals for the plant's scrubber process, an environmental control that reduces sulfur dioxide emissions.

Coal Gasification


Power Systems Development Facility

• Over the past decade, Southern Company, with the Department of Energy, has been developing cleaner, less expensive, more reliable methods for power production from coal.
• The Power Systems Development Facility near Wilsonville, Ala., has developed promising gasification technologies with near-term practical applications.
• Rather than burning coal directly to make electricity, gasification first breaks coal down into chemical components.
• Gases that result from this chemical breakdown can be used to fuel power plants using integrated gasification combined cycle technology.

Biomass
• Georgia Power is considering development of one of the largest biomass power plants in the nation at Plant Mitchell near Albany, Ga. The project would convert a 155-megawatt unit that has been operating since 1964 into a 96-megawatt, biomass-fired boiler.
• Within a 100-mile radius of Plant Mitchell, there are 8 million acres of forest and timberlands, and 11 million tons/year of surplus supply wood fuel.
• Most of the wood fuel likely to be used in the plant is considered unusable waste by timber companies and therefore will not compete with their needed wood supply.
• Approximately 1 million tons of the yearly 11 million ton wood fuel supply will be needed to operate the plant.
• The biomass conversion will have lower fuel and operating costs when compared to continued operation using coal, thereby making the plant more cost-effective for ratepayers.

Natural Gas
• Since 2000, Southern Company has added 8,500 megawatts of cleaner, natural gas-fueled generation. In fact, most utilities in the U.S. have added only natural gas-fueled plants to their fleets in the past several years.
• Natural gas-fueled combined cycle power plants continue to grow in efficiency through advances in turbine technology.
• Natural gas-fueled power plants will remain a viable option because they are clean and relatively fast and less costly to build.
• Natural gas-fueled plants produce carbon emissions, but at a rate about half that of coal-fueled plants.