Alabama Power, Georgia Power and Mississippi Power have been named to Site Selection magazine’s Top Utilities list for 2025, which honors American utilities for their work in economic development.
A total of 22 utilities were presented with the accolade for efforts from 2024. Each year, the magazine assesses the effectiveness of each utility in attracting and retaining business by evaluating new job creation, capital investments, and the implementation of new critical programs and services, before publishing the results.
Alabama Power was a representative for the South Central region, credited with $3.1 billion in corporate facility investment and 2,928 jobs created. Among their achievements was the Alabama Power Economic and Community Development (ECD) team’s continued support of the state’s Site Evaluation and Economic Development Strategy (SEEDS) Act, which enhances Alabama’s competitiveness by addressing the need for development-ready sites and enabling more state resources to go to site development, improvement and acquisition.
The ECD team utilized innovative Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities and drone technology to review and assess thousands of acres of land to identify potential sites to receive SEEDs funding, resulting in the establishment of new marketable sites for economic development.
Georgia Power was selected for the South Atlantic region with a $9.1 billion capital facility investment and 16,957 created jobs. Their economic development team’s projects included a $344.5 million, 600-job facility from glass recycler SOLARCYCLE in Cedartown; a $184-million, 354-job investment from Switzerland-based GF Casting Solutions AG in Augusta; and a 1,000-job headquarters for fantasy sports operator PrizePicks in Atlanta.
The Georgia Power project pipeline closed at an all-time high with 312 projects and 88,500 potential jobs. Data center projects comprised 22% of all capital investments and 65% of total energy load demand. The economic development team’s efforts were also positively impacted by the completion of a fourth nuclear unit at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle in April 2024, making the nuclear site the largest generator of emissions-free energy in the United States.
Mississippi Power was also selected for the South Central region with $10.5 billion in corporate facility investment and 1,124 jobs created. The headlining effort was a landmark agreement with Compass Datacenters on a $10 billion project in Meridian. Other marquee projects include PCC GulfChem’s $540 million, 84-job project in DeLisle, Mar Jac Poultry’s $25 million investment in New Augusta and Bar Pole & Piling Co.’s $10 million project in Quitman. It also marked the second year of the Propels Program which provides communities financial assistance toward site development, strategic planning or marketing efforts, with funds able to be utilized to provide the financial match requirement for the state’s site development program, awarding more than $800,000 since its inception.
For further information on each company’s economic development teams and initiatives:
