Southern Company Energy Marketing signed a five-year deal tomanage Brazos Electric Power Cooperative’s power generation andfuel supplies and deliver 1,650 MW of power to the co-op. Southerncan market the excess power on the open market. The deal alsoobligates Southern to expand the Texas co-op’s generation capacityby 600 MW to satisfy projected load growth, particularly in thearea surrounding Dallas-Fort Worth.

“The agreement will bring more than just savings to our membercooperatives-it provides for [Southern] to assure a higher level ofpredictability and security in the supply of electricity to ourmembers for the next five years,” said Brazos Vice President andGeneral Manager Clifton Karnei. “Brazos Electric also will becomemore competitive as it faces a changing regulatory environment andenergy market. In addition to the savings Brazos Electric willrealize, a significant number of activities Brazos Electric hastraditionally managed will now be managed by [Southern] under thecontract. These activities include daily load fluctuation,operations and maintenance costs and sourcing replacement energydue to unscheduled unit outages.”

Brazos Electric is the largest and oldest Texas generation andtransmission cooperative serving 19 members in the suburban andrural areas of 66 counties in Texas, including Dallas-Fort Worth,three municipalities and Texas A&M University. It controls686.5 MW of generating capacity, 616.8 MW of capacity in long-termcontracts, and 350 MW of capacity in short-term contracts. Thecontracts are held with other Texas utilities, cooperatives,municipal power systems and power marketers.

“This energy services relationship with Brazos Electric is amajor step forward in our strategy to provide wholesale energyservices and operate energy assets in North America’s key powermarkets,” said Southern Company Energy Marketing CEO Marce Fuller.”We believe the most successful players in the wholesale powermarkets will be those companies with generation assets to supporttheir transactions.”

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