Southern Company system hits highest summer peak since 2011
Southern Company said recently that its system loads hit its highest summer peak in eight years on Aug. 13.
The Aug. 13 peak marked the highest summer peak since August 2011 and the highest annual peak since the winter of 2015.
The company noted that its system continued to operate reliably while reducing carbon emissions by more than a third at the peak as compared to the strongest demand of 2007. Increased generation from natural gas and renewables are the main drivers of the reduction in carbon emissions, the company said.
“Our peak-season system EFOR (equivalent forced outage rate) performance of 0.95 percent demonstrates the incredible effort by our teams to balance reliability and cost,” Stan Connally, executive vice president of Southern Company Operations, said. “I am pleased that we are delivering excellent reliability while continuing to reduce costs across our fleet and identify ways to be more efficient.”
Southern Company is targeting low- to no-carbon operations by 2050.
