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Gulf Power Company

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Gulf Power
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryUtilities
HeadquartersPensacola, Florida, USA
Key people
Stan Connally (President & CEO) [1]
Number of employees
1,270
ParentSouthern Company
Websitewww.gulfpower.com

Gulf Power Company (GPC) (NYSE: GUI) is a U.S. investor-owned electric utility with all of its common stock owned by Atlanta-based Southern Company. Gulf Power Company is headquartered in Pensacola, Florida,[2] and has a service territory that spans 7,550 square miles (19,600 km2) in 10 counties and 71 towns in northwest Florida. Gulf Power has approximately 428,000 customers in Florida.[3]

Gulf Power Company owns 1,600 miles (2,600 km) of transmission lines and 7,636 miles (12,289 km) of distribution lines (1,748 underground) that stretch from the western Alabama border to the Apalachicola River and from the northern Alabama border to the Gulf of Mexico.[4] Gulf Power serves 394,772 retail customers directly and another 14,128 customers through the wholesale delivery of electricity to one investor-owned electric utility and one municipality.

History

  • Feb. 10, 1925 – Southeastern Power and Light Company – a holding company which operates electric, gas and street railway systems in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi – purchases the Pensacola Electric Company.
  • Oct. 29, 1925 – Gulf Power Company is organized as a Southeastern subsidiary.
  • Feb. 6, 1926 – Gulf Power Company acquired the Chipley Light and Power Company and becomes a true operating public utility.
  • Late 1926 – The Pensacola Electric Company merges into Gulf Power after being rescued from receivership by the holding company. Electricity during this period was very unreliable and erratic, and came from about 20 scattered and individually operating units. These generators were designed to supply power to ice plants, lumber yards and electric transit systems. In spite of northwest Florida’s poor economic state, Gulf Power had no choice but to modernize its equipment in order to continue operating.
  • Sept. 6, 1926 – The Great Miami Hurricane hits Florida with 120 mph (190 km/h) winds and nine-foot storm surges, destroying nearly 4,000 rotting power poles and extinguishing fires in the old downtown Pensacola generating plant. As a result, more than 600 employees from sister companies work to restore service and install a more modern system. They restore power to the region in record time – within 65 days.
  • Late 1926 – A 110,000 volt transmission line is built from the northern Alabama/Florida border to Pensacola, Florida – causing the old Allis-Chalmers steam turbine-generator to be placed on standby and therefore ending the era of local power generation. Gulf Power relies on imported energy for the next 39 years, even with an additional 7,366 customers inherited in 1926, and another 40,000 customers after World War II in the mid 1940s.
  • 1945 – Gulf Power takes the first step toward producing its own electricity by building a 22,000 kW generating unit at the Crist Steam Plant in Pensacola, Florida, to help supply power after years of outages due to war shortages.

Generating facilities

Fossil fuel power plants

Plant Nearest City Units Total Capacity
James F. Crist Electric Generating Plant Pensacola, Florida 4 930,000 kW
Lansing Smith Electric Generating Plant Panama City, Florida 4 889,900 kW
Gulf Power also owns a percentage of the following generating units [5]
Plant Nearest City Ownership Percentage Total Capacity
Victor J. Daniel Electric Generating Plant (Plant Daniel) Escatawpa, Mississippi 506,500 kW (50%) 2,000,000 kW
Robert W. Scherer Steam-Electric Generating Plant (Plant Scherer) Juliette, Georgia 210,900 kW (25%) 3,272,000 kW
Commercial generation Pea Ridge Pea Ridge, Florida 15,000 kW

Community

Gulf Power Company is the largest single taxpayer in northwest Florida. The company’s city, county, state and federal taxes totaled $132.4 million for 2007 – amounting to 10.5 cents out of every dollar earned by the company or $311 per customer. In 2007, the company supported local agencies, chambers of commerce, economic development groups and the United Way as well as other charitable organizations with nearly $1.2 million. Gulf Power employees also contributed more than $80,000 to various philanthropies in northwest Florida.[6]

Environment & Conservation

As of 2011, Gulf Power has reduced its overall plant emissions by 85 percent since 1992, while added 135,000 customers over that time period.[6]

See also

List of power stations in Florida

Notes

  1. ^ http://www.gulfpower.com/about/organization.asp
  2. ^ http://www.gulfpower.com/contact/home.asp
  3. ^ Energy Companies in Florida August 2013 Florida Trend page 44
  4. ^ http://www.gulfpower.com/about/facts.asp
  5. ^ http://www.gulfpower.com/about/plants.asp
  6. ^ a b http://www.gulfpower.com/about/pdf/FactCard.pdf
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