ATLANTA -- Southern Company announced today that it has signed long-term wholesale power sale contracts totaling 750 megawatts with 30 electric membership cooperatives in Georgia.

“We are pleased to be able to help meet the energy needs of these Georgia EMCs,” said Paul Bowers, president of Southern Company Generation and Energy Marketing, which manages and generates electricity for the company and markets energy in the competitive wholesale supply business. “We will continue to grow our competitive generation business by securing contracts that help meet the needs of wholesale customers with energy that is competitively priced and reliable.”

Southern Company is the largest wholesale energy provider in the Southeast, supplying nearly 27 million megawatt-hours of electricity to wholesale customers in the region last year, representing more than 15 percent of the company’s total megawatt-hour sales. The company is adding more than 4,600 megawatts by the end of 2003 that will be dedicated to the competitive generation market.

In addition, Southern Company’s financial objectives target continued growth of the competitive generation business, with the expectations that net income from that business will double over the next five years.

Southern Company (NYSE: SO) is a super-regional energy company with more than 32,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity in the Southeast. It is one of the largest producers of electricity in the U.S. Southern Company is the parent firm of Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, Mississippi Power, Savannah Electric, Southern Nuclear, Southern Company Generation and Energy Marketing, Southern Company Energy Solutions, Southern LINC and Southern Telecom. Southern Company brands are synonymous with excellent customer service, high reliability, and prices that are 15 percent below the national average.