It's Kim Flowers, manager of Plant Smith in northwest Florida. She's leading our efforts to increase the facility's efficiency while also decreasing its rate of emissions.

 
 
  With SWE, we buy and sell electricity and fuel through our energy marketing and trading organization in Birmingham, Alabama.

 

 

GROWING COMPETITIVELY
In the Southeast, our competitive energy supply business drives our growth.

The portion of our generating capacity in the Southeast dedicated to our competitive energy supply business will grow from its current 13 percent to about 28 percent by 2003. And that's while we add nearly 7,000 megawatts of new environmentally friendly gas-fired generation.

The 10,000 megawatts we will use to serve wholesale customers in the Southeast will make our competitive energy supply business larger than many investor-owned utilities.

PROFITING FROM OPPORTUNITY
Southern Wholesale Energy – or SWE – acts as an agent for our regulated business.

Demand for electricity from our retail and wholesale customers fluctuates throughout the year. As a result, there's an opportunity for us to sell and buy electricity according to market prices and demand for electricity. SWE does that, buying when market prices are below our cost to produce, and selling when we can make a profit.

MANAGING RISK
SWE has long-term contracts to supply more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity to about 30 large customers. We continue to expand this business. In 1999, we added more than 800 megawatts of new long-term contracts.

Long-term deals help minimize risk. When we add new generation dedicated to serve competitive energy markets, our target is to have wholesale customers already committed to about 80 percent of the output. We then sell the remainder on a short-term basis.

GETTING THE BEST VALUE
We plan to continue being the leading energy supplier in the Southeast. That means we'll continue developing generation to meet the region's future energy demands.

SWE's success at getting the best value from generation is the model on which we base our competitive energy supply business in North America and throughout the world.