ATLANTA -- Southern Company announced today that it has sold an additional 160 megawatts of wholesale power from Georgia Power’s Plant Dahlberg generating facility that is currently under construction in Jackson County, Ga. Southern Wholesale Energy, the marketing and trading arm of Southern Company Generation, recently signed a long-term contract for Plant Dahlberg units 6 and 7.

The generating facility, scheduled for commercial operation in the summer of 2000, will be committed to the wholesale market. Each generating unit at Plant Dahlberg will be a natural gas-fired, simple-cycle combustion turbine unit. This state-of-the-art technology is an extremely efficient and environmentally sensitive method of generating peaking power, and each generating unit will be equipped with advanced emission controls.

A total of eight, 80-megawatt generating units are scheduled for completion by the summer of 2000. To supply additional anticipated wholesale power demand, Southern Company plans to build a total of approximately 16 generating units at the site during the next two years, raising the plant’s generating capacity to 1,200 megawatts. With the signing of its most recent wholesale power contract, Southern Wholesale Energy already has contractual commitments for the majority of the plant output prior to its commercial operation.

Because the plant will serve the wholesale market, it will not affect electric rates paid by Georgia Power customers. The plant will be owned and operated by Georgia Power, Southern Company’s electric utility subsidiary in Georgia.

Georgia Power is the largest subsidiary of Southern Company, the nation’s largest generator of electricity. Georgia Power, an investor-owned, tax-paying utility, serves customers in 57,000 of the state’s 59,000 square miles. Georgia Power`s rates are 23 percent below the national average, and the company`s 1.8 million customers are in all but six of Georgia’s 159 counties.

Southern Company (NYSE: SO), is an international energy company with $35 billion in assets through regional utilities and operations around the world. It is the largest producer of electricity in the United States and one of the world’s largest independent power producers. Based in Atlanta, Southern Company is the parent firm of Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, Mississippi Power and Savannah Electric. Through its Southern Energy Inc. subsidiary, Southern Company supplies electricity in 10 countries on four continents. It also provides energy-related marketing, trading and technical services and Southern LINC wireless telecommunications.