ATLANTA – In a significant deal recently signed, Southern Company Energy Solutions, a business unit of Southern Company, one of the largest producers of energy in the U.S., and Atlantic Station have partnered to develop the Southeast’s largest, most environmentally-friendly central cooling system.

The fully built-out plant, jointly engineered by Southern Company Energy Solutions and Atlantic Station, L.L.C., will save building owners more than $35 million in construction costs, while operating more than 25 percent more efficiently than traditional building HVAC systems. This will result in lower energy bills for tenants.

By partnering early in the project’s development, the two teams have developed the best engineering and financial solution for the development and its occupants.

“In traditional construction, the chiller (which provides cool air) is typically the largest energy load in any given building. Each building and even individual segments of buildings, usually have separate cooling systems,” states Jim Jacoby, Atlantic Station Chairman. “By planning appropriately on the front end—before construction even begins—we will be able to develop an efficient infrastructure that provides environmental and economic benefits to those who live, work and play at Atlantic Station.”

A two-mile-long network of 36-inch pipes will deliver chilled water from a 50,000-square-foot central cooling plant to office, residential and retail buildings as they are built at the 140-acre development. The system will circulate approximately 40,000 gallons of chilled water per minute at peak times to control the temperature in these buildings. (In comparison, the average shower head pumps five to seven gallons of water per minute, while 75,000 gallons of water per second flow over the American Falls at Niagara Falls.)

The district cooling system, which is most commonly applied to large college campuses, will reduce building maintenance and save the enormous square footage required for more conventional building cooling. The absence of cooling units at each building will even provide aesthetic benefits, eliminating the need for the typical (and architecturally challenging) roof-top cooling unit.

“The planning of a central cooling system such as the one at Atlantic Station requires an environmentally-minded developer who is able to incorporate energy-saving components into non-traditional aspects of a development,” states Mike Ellis, vice president of Southern Company Energy Solutions. “This partnership will not only serve as a role model for other developments, but it provides another opportunity for us to produce energy, while having the least impact on the environment.

“This is not the path of least resistance because so much planning is needed on the front end. But taking the longer view, the central cooling district will provide the most value to Atlantic Station’s tenants and to the community at large,” states Jacoby.

The Atlantic Station project is a 140-acre environmental redevelopment and reclamation of the former Atlantic Steel Mill at the nexus of interstates 75 and 85 in Midtown Atlanta. Scheduled to open in autumn 2003, the development is ultimately projected to include 12 million square feet of retail, office, residential and hotel space as well as 11 acres of public parks.

Southern Company Energy Solutions designs, engineers, installs, operates and maintains innovative energy projects. Founded in 1996, Energy Solutions has grown into a multifaceted company delivering unique and complex energy service projects to the industrial, commercial, institutional and governmental markets. Southern Company Energy Solutions will be responsible for building, owning, operating and maintaining the chiller plant and other infrastructure.

With 4 million customers and nearly 35,000 megawatts of generating capacity, Atlanta-based Southern Company (NYSE: SO) is the premier super-regional energy company in the Southeast and a leading U.S. producer of electricity. Southern Company owns electric utilities in four states, a fast-growing competitive generation company and an energy services business, as well as fiber optics and wireless communications. Southern Company brands are known for excellent customer service, high reliability and retail electric prices that are 15 percent below the national average. Southern Company has been named No. 1 on Fortune magazine’s 2002 “America’s Most Admired Companies” list in the Electric and Gas Utility industry. Southern Company has more than 500,000 shareholders, making its common stock one of the most widely held in the United States.