Southern Delivering Energy From Largest U.S. Biomass Power Plant

Southern Co. (SO), the second-largest U.S. power company by market value, is delivering electricity to the grid from its $500 million biomass-fueled plant in Texas.

Austin Energy, the municipal utility owned by Austin, Texas, will purchase for 20 years the output of the 100-megawatt Nacogdoches Generating Facility, the largest U.S. biomass plant, Southern said today in a statement.

Southern, based in Atlanta, bought the plant from American Renewables LLC in 2009. It also owns two solar power plants with Ted Turner and has agreed to buy 202 megawatts of capacity from a wind farm under construction in Oklahoma.

Nacogdoches is fueled by wood waste from sawmills and forestry as well as diseased or other “non-commercial trees,” Southern said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Herndon in San Francisco at aherndon2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net