Miss. Power Exec: Company Needs To Expand Capacity

EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Power Co. president Anthony Topazi told state regulators Monday the company has a "strong and clear need" to increase its capacity to generate electricity and that a new $2.2 billion plant would help do the job.

The company proposes building a lignite plant to open by 2014 in the east-central part of the state. The three-member state Public Service Commission is holding hearings this week about whether the plant is needed.

Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of the Atlanta-based Southern Co., says the plant would use a new technology that converts a soft coal called lignite into a gas that would fuel turbines to create electricity. Company officials say the lignite would be locally mined and would be cheaper than natural gas.

The technology is known as IGCC, or Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle. Southern Co. announced in September that it would build the first IGCC plant in China, with operation expected to begin in 2011.

"This technology is really the future for coal use in the world," Topazi told the PSC.