INCREASING PROFITS
We are big and growing. In 1999, we traded more than 219 million megawatt-hours of electricity, giving us an 8.3 percent share of the U.S. wholesale electricity market. We also traded 5.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.

Through Southern Company Energy Marketing, we buy and sell electricity, natural gas, coal and oil from and to utilities, independent power producers, marketers and others.

Having our energy trading and marketing group sell power from our generating plants significantly increases profits and reduces risk. That's because we use our knowledge of competitive markets to run our plants in response to daily – and even hourly – price changes. And that leads to bigger profit margins.

That's why we have 12,000 megawatts of generating capacity – that we own, are building, or have control over – in the Northeast, California/Southwest, Midwest, and Texas regions. And that's why we're working to double that through acquisitions and building new generation.

MEETING U.S. ENERGY NEEDS
While they don't receive any bills directly from us, chances are that – when the 250,000 students at the 50 colleges and universities in the Boston area power up their computers and research projects...and when the financial markets take off for another ride on Wall Street...and when a cable car makes a trip into downtown San Francisco...and when the fast-paced futures traded at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange are officially recorded...and when air conditioners run full blast to ease the Dallas heat – some of the electricity they use comes from us.

NORTHEAST
In the Northeast, our generating capacity of about 3,000 megawatts goes into the systems that serve energy users in New York and Massachusetts. To help meet the growing needs of those areas, we're planning to add 1,500 megawatts of new environmentally friendly, gas-fired generation.

CALIFORNIA
Our plants in California are not far from Silicon Valley and are anything but laid back. They are environmentally friendly, gas-fired "must-run" units, meaning their 3,065 megawatts are needed to meet the basic energy needs of the San Francisco area. So are the 1,050 megawatts that we're adding by 2003.

MIDWEST
In the Midwest, we're breezing into Chicago and aiming to be a big cheese in Wisconsin. We're planning to more than double the size of our Indiana plant that currently provides 490 megawatts to Commonwealth Edison, which supplies electricity to the Windy City. Near Green Bay, our plant under construction will pack in 306 megawatts of state-of-the-art, gas-fired generation and should add another 219 megawatts in 2008.

TEXAS
We have a major presence in Texas, where market growth is strong and capacity is short. We're building a 460-megawatt, gas-fired plant that will expand to 780 megawatts by 2005. We also manage 1,650 megawatts for the Brazos Electric Power Cooperative in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

CONTINUING SUCCESS
Our strategy is to continue pursuing new generation and link it to our trading and marketing operations. To take better advantage of increasing growth opportunities, we may need more than our initial goal of 24,000 megawatts. But we don't buy everything that becomes available. It has to be the right opportunity in the right place at the right price.