Southern Co’s Alabama Power and Georgia Power have secured a total of up to $26.54 billion in loans from the United States Department of Energy (DOE), which would lower the cost of the utilities’ grid investment.
“These loans represent the largest government investment aimed at directly lowering consumer energy costs and increasing grid reliability”, DOE said in an online statement.
The 30-year loans, awarded by the Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) Office created by the current Trump administration, could result in $7 billion in savings for 4.3 million customers, Southern Co said separately.
“The two loans will build or upgrade over 16 gigawatts (GW) of firm reliable power to the electrical grid”, DOE said. “This includes 5 GW of new gas generation, 6 GW in nuclear improved through uprates and license renewals, hydropower modernization, battery energy storage systems and over 1,300 miles of transmission and grid enhancement projects”.
“Once all funds are received through the program, the loans are estimated to reduce Southern Co’s interest expenses by over $300 million per year, helping expedite lower electricity costs for customers”, DOE said.
Southern Co said its “vertically integrated, state-regulated model provides an orderly and transparent framework for working with regulators to deploy essential energy infrastructure investments – like those supported by the EDF loans for the benefit of customers”.
“Under these new EDF loans, Southern Co subsidiaries will be among the first to take advantage of the funding provided by President Trump’s Energy Dominance Financing Program created by the Working Families Tax Cut and will finance a portfolio of projects across its Southeastern service territory”, Southern Co said.
Draws from the loans, available through 2033, remain subject to the fulfillment of conditions, Southern Co said.
Deferred Rate Hikes
Earlier Alabama Power and Georgia Power struck agreements with their respective regulators to keep rates steady for at least two years and defer cost recovery.
“Alabama Power will hold in place all existing factors in customer rates, including delaying until 2028 the implementation of previously approved adjustments for the Lindsay Hill generation facility”, Alabama Power said in a press release December 2, 2025.
“As part of the commitment to keeping rates steady, the company will absorb the newly acquired facility’s costs in 2027 rather than deferring or shifting those costs to a later date”.
Meanwhile Georgia Power has agreed to keep base rates “stable and predictable through at least the end of 2028”, it said in a statement July 1, 2025.
The approval of the plan by Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) prevented the utility from filing a rate case last year under which the company would have asked for the recovery of expenses from storm damage, primarily caused by Hurricane Helene in 2024, the state PSC said separately at the time.
“Per the rate freeze agreement, Georgia Power will wait until 2026 to ask for recovery of storm expenses”, the Georgia PSC said.
Last week Georgia Power filed storm cost and fuel cost recovery cases with the Georgia PSC.
“According to today’s filing, the company’s storm reserve is under-recovered by $912 million, which the company proposes recovering over the next four years”, Georgia Power said in a statement February 17. “This includes nearly $800 million in damage from Hurricane Helene in 2024 – the most destructive storm in the company’s history with 12,200+ power poles, 1,500+ miles of power lines and nearly 5,000 transformers damaged or destroyed”.
To contact the author, email jov.onsat@rigzone.com
element
var scriptTag = document.createElement(‘script’);
scriptTag.src = url;
scriptTag.async = true;
scriptTag.onload = implementationCode;
scriptTag.onreadystatechange = implementationCode;
location.appendChild(scriptTag);
};
var div = document.getElementById(‘rigzonelogo’);
div.innerHTML += ” +
‘
‘ +
”;
var initJobSearch = function () {
////console.log(“call back”);
}
var addMetaPixel = function () {
if (-1 > -1 || -1 > -1) {
/*Meta Pixel Code*/
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1517407191885185’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
/*End Meta Pixel Code*/
} else if (0 > -1 && 92 > -1)
{
/*Meta Pixel Code*/
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1517407191885185’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
/*End Meta Pixel Code*/
}
}
// function gtmFunctionForLayout()
// {
//loadJS(“https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-K6ZDLWV6VX”, initJobSearch, document.body);
//}
// window.onload = (e => {
// setTimeout(
// function () {
// document.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”, function () {
// // Select all anchor elements with class ‘ui-tabs-anchor’
// const anchors = document.querySelectorAll(‘a .ui-tabs-anchor’);
// // Loop through each anchor and remove the role attribute if it is set to “presentation”
// anchors.forEach(anchor => {
// if (anchor.getAttribute(‘role’) === ‘presentation’) {
// anchor.removeAttribute(‘role’);
// }
// });
// });
// }
// , 200);
//});
