COO Stan Connally highlights Southern Company’s role in powering America’s industrial growth at Reindustrialize Summit
Southern Company participated in the recent Reindustrialize Summit, where Chief Operating Officer Stan Connally outlined how the company is moving with speed to power unprecedented electricity demand with reliable, affordable energy for customers.
Speaking to an audience of 2,500 technology leaders, venture capitalists, investors and policymakers in Detroit, Connally shared how the system is moving with speed to power growing electricity demand while keeping customers at the center of everything we do.
Artificial intelligence, data centers and advanced manufacturing are reshaping the energy landscape and reinforcing the need for reliable, affordable energy, faster infrastructure development and continued investment in skilled workers, he said.
“We’ve got to think differently,” Connally said during a fireside chat. “We’ve got to deploy technology differently, but we’ve just got to move faster.”
Southern Company, through its family of companies, is undertaking one of the largest utility expansions in U.S. history, making significant long-term investments in generation, grid infrastructure and reliability to serve growth reliably and in a way that benefits all customers.
“We’ve made the decision: We’re going to be open for business,” Connally said. “And we’re going to deliver speed to power.”
He emphasized that growth must work for all customers. Southern Company is taking steps to help ensure large-load customers pay their full share of the infrastructure required to serve them — helping support new generation, transmission investment and grid-enhancing technologies to serve new demand in ways that support affordability and help reduce pressure on customer bills.
“Keeping the customer at the center of our success equation here is absolutely imperative.”
“We always have to maintain safe, clean, reliable, affordable energy for our customers — that’s really the heart of what we do,” Connally said.
Willing to do the hard things
Emerging technologies — including artificial intelligence, microgrids and grid-enhancing tools — have an important role in helping the company plan faster, deploy capital more efficiently and support a more resilient energy system, he said.
Connally pointed to electric generating units under construction in Georgia as an example of the system’s focus on improving project execution and bringing needed resources online more quickly than similar projects would have taken in the past.
The discussion also touched on the company’s experience completing Vogtle Units 3 and 4, the first new nuclear units built in the United States in more than three decades. Connally said that experience reflects a broader mindset needed to meet the country’s energy and industrial needs.
“There’s a theme that underlies this for Southern Company, but I’d say it underlies it for America: We’re willing to do hard things,” Connally said. He added that nuclear energy will continue to be an important part of meeting the country’s long-term energy needs.
Future energy infrastructure will require strong partnerships, durable policy tools, common-sense permitting reform and shared commitment from utilities, policymakers and large customers, he said.
Our people are our most important asset
Connally underscored the importance of investing in a skilled workforce to build, operate and maintain the energy system.
“They’re the heartbeat of what we’re trying to do here,” he said. “They’re serving America’s energy needs. I want us to continue investing in them.”
Looking ahead, Connally said successful American reindustrialization will depend on energy infrastructure that enables economic growth while protecting affordability for families and businesses.
“If we don’t invest in infrastructure right and make sure it’s reliable and affordable, so much of what we’re trying to do just doesn’t happen,” Connally said. “Keeping the customer at the center of our success equation here is absolutely imperative.”