Southern Company's regulated regional electric utilities serve a 120,000-square-mile (310,000 km2) territory with 27,000 miles (43,000 km) of distribution lines.

[5] Southern Company subsidiaries are operating or developing renewable power across the U.S., as well as opening the first new nuclear units in the U.S. in 30 years at Plant Vogtle near Augusta, Georgia.

After nearly four years of operations, the company was sold and customers transferred to Cobb EMC's newly formed affiliate, Gas South.

[13] As a result of the AGL Resources merger, Southern Company doubled its customer base to approximately 9 million and expanded its footprint and broadened the scope of its business by increasing its natural gas presence.

[21] In June 2010, the United States Department of Energy awarded an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to facilitate the construction of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, near Augusta, Georgia.

[22] The construction of two 1,154 MW reactors has been hailed by Energy Secretary Steven Chu as "the first new nuclear power plant to break ground in decades".

[23] However, in March 2017 Westinghouse Electric Company, who were building the plant, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because of $9 billion of losses from its two U.S. nuclear construction projects.

[24] The U.S. government had given $8.3 billion of loan guarantees on the financing of the four nuclear reactors being built in the U.S., and it is expected a way forward to completing the plant can be agreed.

[28] Preemptively recognizing the need for these changes, Southern Company broke ground on its 21st-century clean coal facility in June 2010.

Southern Company, and its subsidiary, Mississippi Power anticipate that the Kemper Coal Plant will generate enough energy to serve more than 187,000 customers.

Upon opening, the Kemper Coal Project is expected to be capable of stripping out at least 65% of the carbon dioxide, significantly exceeding the EPA's proposed requirement of 40%.

[33] Southern Company works with the U.S. Department of Energy on a variety of projects including transmission and distribution of infrastructure and smart grid initiatives, environmental research programs, and nuclear generation.

[37] This partnership with Shenhua, who is currently expected to add more than 400,000 megawatts of coal-fired capacity by 2035, could lead to wide deployment of TRIG-equipped power plants across Asia.

TRIG technology has the potential to not only assist China with their growing carbon issue, but also enable the country to tap into their own low quality coal.

The upgraded smart grid allows Southern Company the ability to monitor and control its electric infrastructure in real time and respond to problems.

[42] In May 2018, it was reported that Southern Company had donated $1 million to America First Policies, a pro-Donald Trump advocacy group.

[43][44][45] Southern Company is the third-largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, emitting 86,244,286 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019.

[citation needed] The company also manages and operates the National Carbon Capture Center, a focal point of the US Department of Energy's efforts to develop carbon capture and greenhouse gas reduction technologies,[52] under which various projects to test geologic sequestration are in progress at Plant Gorgas in Alabama, Plant Daniel in Mississippi and other company sites.

The utility paid $20 million to the trade group Edison Electric Institute, which creates media campaigns to attack proponents of global warming.

In May 2016, Southern Company and its subsidiary Mississippi Power announced they were being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission related to overruns at the Kemper Project.

[58] In recorded conversations, at least six engineers from the Kemper Project claimed that delays, cost overruns, safety violations, and shoddy work, were in part due to mismanagement or fraud.

[59] Treetop had contracted to buy carbon dioxide from the Kemper plant and had built a pipeline in preparation to receive the gas.

[60][61] In February 2015, it was revealed that climate change denier Willie Soon had been paid by Southern Company and several other fossil fuel interest groups.

[62] Over the course of 14 years, Soon received a total of $1.25m from Southern Company, Exxon Mobil, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and a foundation run by the Koch brothers, the documents obtained by Greenpeace show.