Energy Efficiency

We actively work with the U.S. government, utilities, universities and technology developers in innovative partnerships to provide customers with clean, safe, reliable, affordable energy. For more than 40 years, we have collaborated with the Electric Power Research Institute to research and develop solutions to meet customers’ current and future energy needs. Through our partnership with Nest, Southern Company is among the first energy companies in the U.S. to offer Nest's third-generation product line to customers. In addition, Bloom Energy, Southern Company and its subsidiary PowerSecure have announced the acquisition of an estimated 50 megawatts of distributed fuel cells. This strategic alliance will include project investment and joint-technology development to provide innovative behind-the-meter energy solutions for customers.

Electricity

The company is a leader in offering significant and innovative energy efficiency programs. The company is currently on the path to invest over $1 billion in electricity-related efficiency initiatives in the ten-year period that ends in 2020.

The My Power Usage program enables electric customers to view their daily energy usage in dollars or kWh, set up and maintain personal energy-use budget alerts, subscribe to energy efficiency reminders and view their projected electric bill amount.

Alabama Power is partnering with Signature Homes, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and several technology vendors to develop and offer Smart Neighborhood by Alabama Power – a community of 62 high-performance homes featuring emerging technology and energy-saving materials.

A sampling of energy efficiency and demand-response programs offered to residential customers by the company includes:

• Home energy audits
• Low-income weatherization and direct install programs
• Pre-K through Grade 12 energy efficiency education program
• Variable pricing and “smart” thermostat combinations
• Solar thermal water heating and home-building guidelines

For larger-volume small business, commercial and industrial customers we offer:

• Energy services
• Energy audits
• Real-time pricing
• Equipment rebates
• Interruptible customer rate programs
• Guided customer energy “six-sigma” type programs
• Standby generation and commercial construction programs

Natural Gas

Southern Company Gas’ energy efficiency programs have piloted and installed numerous technologies that help our customers use gas more efficiently. For example, since 2011, Nicor Gas, a subsidiary of Southern Company Gas, has a goal of annual savings of more than 16 million therms and a corresponding reduction of more than 840,000 metric tons of customers’ CO2 emissions. Between 2011 and 2021, Nicor Gas expects to invest more than $375 million in energy efficiency for natural gas customers. In addition, the Nicor Gas Energy Efficiency Program is expected to result in a cumulative $1.2 billion in new economic impact (direct, indirect and induced spending) through 2021 and is forecasted to support 8,700 jobs through 2021.

Electric Power Research Institute Energy-Efficiency Demonstrations - The Southern Company system is participating in demonstrations of several efficient residential and commercial technologies, including variable flow residential heat pumps, residential ductless heat pumps and heat pump washer/dryer systems.

Residential Heat Pump Water Heaters - These units extract heat from the surrounding air and pump it to heat domestic water. Heat pump water heaters are about 2.5 times more efficient than conventional electric water heaters and four to five times more efficient than gas water heaters. By using less energy, the units reduce emissions and costs.

Industrial Heat Pump - We're helping customers with technologies like a 500-ton system that captures waste heat from condensers to deliver 150-degree hot water for the facility, and an electric hybrid desiccant that dehumidifies building ventilation air using less than 50 percent conventional compression HVAC technology.

UV for Finish Curing - Using only 20 percent of the energy typically used with other curing methodologies, UV light is being demonstrated for industrial material final finish curing of liquid, powder and adhesive coatings.

For over 100 years, Southern Company has been committed to innovation with a focus on the research and development of emerging energy solutions.

By 2030, the company expects some significant changes in some of the basic functioning of the grid. These changes will be enabled by advances in communication protocols, power electronics, analytics and flexibility:

Now

One-way flow

Scheduled generation

Central dispatch

Time-based maintenance

Mostly mechanical

Reactive expansion

2030

Bi-directional flow

Uncontrolled variable generation

High-performance infrastructure

Consition-based maintenance

Inverter-based growth

Proactive expansion

Examples of company activities to enable these transitions include:

Monitoring and visualization. The company is engaged with the industry’s collaborative research organization, the Electric Power Research Institute in ongoing development of a transmission monitoring, diagnostics and visualization tool for the transmission system that will facilitate decisions and mitigating measures to enhance system performance, efficiency and reliability.

SynchroPhasors. Phasor Measurement Units provide high-speed, synchronized measurements of systemwide phasor voltages and currents that are unavailable with the current monitoring systems. Their deployment is helping to improve real-time stability of the grid.

Analytics center. The company is developing a Transmission Visualization and Analytics Center for testing next generation hardware and software for grid control before implementation. It will also serve as a training center for system operators.

The Southern Company system has improved the efficiency of operations by deploying 4.6 million smart meters across the Southeast. In addition to automatically reporting energy usage and outage information, the meters enhance response times for service requests and curtail the number of company vehicles on the road, reducing vehicle emissions and traffic while saving fuel. The technology also aids the development of demand response programs and makes time-of-use pricing possible.

Activities underway in the U.S. include: active studies/investigations that are legislative or regulatory-led around grid modernization topic areas, changes to utility planning processes that consider non-wires alternatives and changes to state and wholesale market regulations enabling market access, and utility business model and rate reform that include performance based rates, time of use rates, residential demand charges, etc.

Southern Company’s electric utility companies have been actively deploying technologies that will enable the future state of energy delivery.  Smart grid investments have exceeded over $1 billion and include the deployment of grid automation, advanced metering infrastructure, Conservation Voltage Reduction, remote fault indicators, numerous SCADA operated devices and sensors, solar photovoltaics, Distribution Management Systems and storage demonstration projects.

One of the greatest challenges for our industry is cybersecurity. As utility systems and customer equipment become more digitally enabled and interconnected, the risk of cyber-attacks will be more prevalent and disruptive. Cybersecurity must be an integral part of planning, developing and implementing the next generation of the electric grid and customer digitalization.