POWERGRAMS

With chilly fall temperatures descending, Alabama Power customers can depend on reliable power to stay toasty warm. That's not only because the company's generating plants are well-prepared for winter, but also because Alabama Power is among the nation's most dependable electric providers, with a 99.98% reliability ranking. That is a unique achievement in the electric-utility industry. Power Delivery Senior Vice President Scott Moore, who leads Transmission and Distribution, points to the company's dedicated employees who have earned the great track record of keeping the power on; careful planning of maintenance outages; investment in technologies that have improved reliability and work that strengthens the electric grid. Moore is not only responsible for the maintenance and reliable operation of the company's electric system: He tracks Alabama Power's electric load and workings of the Transmission system along with the company's service to the entire Southern Company balancing authority and oversees the company's role with the electric grid. "In the power delivery space, we have to think a little bit more broadly about how we are connected and how to serve the greater good of the whole infrastructure across the country," said Moore, who has 30 years of experience. Electric load has evolved subtly through the years, tipping Alabama Power into winter peaking – the only Southern Company subsidiary in this category. While commercial and industrial electric demand has increased, the company's residential footprint has changed dramatically with customers' use of electric heat pumps, generating enhanced electric load. Despite those efficiencies, Alabama Power has needed to add more units to meet increased winter load. "In a peak-season narrative, whether winter or summer, we must be aware of when that load profile is getting to the point we have to really pay close attention to it," Moore said. "To prepare for the winter season, there are significant outages scheduled that we must take to conduct maintenance on our system." As company load matured with growth across the state, the need for more electricity in the winter increased with residential customers' use of heat pumps. "We didn't suddenly reach this threshold," Moore pointed out. Winter peaks can occur as early as December and extend into January and February. While winter peak is higher than summer peak, the season is narrower. Summer peak is marked by higher temperatures from May through October. By the end of February, weather becomes spring-like, bringing concerns about storm season. "Still, the loads that show up on our system are tremendous, and they require all our facilities to be available and to make sure that we can serve our customers' needs during those times," Moore said. Affordability and value are key components of keeping customers at the center: "When they flip that switch and the lights come on, that's the value creation that I want our employees to emphasize when they have conversations with our customers," Moore said. Winter peak calls plants to action The generating plants use a prescribed checklist to get ready for winter peak. Prework is done before heavy load season, when temperatures drop to the 50s. Employees check weather forecasts and ensure all winterization efforts are complete before the first freeze. That requires major coordination because certain transmission lines must be out for maintenance or upgrades. Work is scheduled with the company's Generation fleet, helmed by Senior Production Officer – West and Senior Vice President Brandon Dillard. "The interface with Generation is critically important that we have strong, coordinated conversation," Moore said. "We have planning criteria that we go through. We're talking with them about outage needs they may have, with a good perspective on when an outage is needed, what their schedule is and what we expect of them. And we build that into our planning criteria." Those tremendous loads mean that all company facilities must be available to meet customer demand. Employees prepare breakers and equipment at switchyards and switching stations for freezing weather and turn on heaters for certain equipment. "It's always really important we make sure all that works after a long season of it being off," Moore said. "We must be prepared for that. Everything goes through cycles. Equipment gets hot during the summer and is really challenged, then suddenly, it's not so challenged. Then in the winter you need them and you need to make sure that they're available to work for you and do all the things they need to do." It's Moore's responsibility to manage the company's delivery challenges that match load and generation capacity. "We want to have more generation capability than load, and we maintain a reserve margin target to guarantee the system is reliable," Moore said. "Because of this, we can take generators offline to perform maintenance during off-peak seasons to ensure exceptional performance throughout the rest of the year. We must make sure there's enough capacity to serve the load and have the margin to take these crucial outages." Scaling the heights of reliability Thanks to new technology, Alabama Power is isolating events on the system, which may be caused by the weather or other events. The company's fault isolation and service restoration (FISR) system with "self-healing" components shows faults or issues on the electric system. Using a computer interface, FISR allows the systems to switch and isolate different challenges, such as when a car hits a pole or a tree falls on a line. FISR determines what and where the fault is, isolating it down to the location and then energizes the lines back to areas around where the fault exists, keeping the power on. With this new technology, Alabama Power also can calculate avoided minutes of interruption. "In today's world, I can say, 'But for these devices, you would have been without power,'" Moore said. "I can now measure that in a way that says we avoided these many minutes of interruption. When I look at that, over the last five to seven years, we're now at more than 700 years of avoided minutes of interruption. When you think about the fact we've avoided seven years' worth of those minutes for our customers, then that's a very big message to try to get communicated." He is extremely proud of the company's investments to make the grid the most technologically advanced it can be. "It's 75,000 miles of distribution lines, 10,000 miles of transmission lines," Moore said. "When you think about that legacy system that's been there, for a lot of cases, 100 years or more, we still have to maintain that." Improvements to thousands of miles of power lines takes time. The company is actively working through those, including areas with reliability or resiliency challenges, undergrounding certain sections of line, maintaining rights of ways and installing additional devices on lines. Helping other utilities in times of need Over the years, Alabama Power has earned a strong reputation for helping utilities impacted by natural disaster. Most recently, Alabama Power came to the rescue of Georgia Power after Hurricane Helene and helped Floridians after Hurricane Milton's devastation. After Helene, Alabama Power sent more than 1,000 workers and more than 500 contractors, who replaced more than 2,750 poles, 1,150 transformers and 11,850 spans of wire. On Oct. 11, the crews rallied again to help Florida, after Milton knocked out service to 3 million people. "Our employees know what their job is, they know what their storm responsibility is and they respond," Moore said. "And they show up and get the lights back on. And that commitment, I think, all the way into the communities where we serve and where we live, really makes a difference, and that's where we get as many accolades about storm response and those kinds of things as anybody in the country. And we do it very, very well. We have a great reputation for how we do storm restoration." Run the business like you own it In today's economic climate, Moore said it's critical that employees understand and know their role. "We're in a place where we all need to pay attention to how we perform when it comes to running the business efficiently and effectively, and the best way it can be run. Everybody should own their piece of the puzzle." By Donna Cope Photos by Phil Free "We're ensuring we make investments that have a positive impact on how we serve our customers." – Power Delivery Senior VP Scott Moore Company prepping for winter peak, more reliable than ever at 99.98% SENIOR VP SCOTT MOORE: 2

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