Gulf Power Company (NYSE: GUI) is a U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 investor-owned electric utility with all of its common stock owned by Atlanta based Southern Company

Southern Company

Southern Company is a public utility holding company of primarily electric utilities in the southern United States. It is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with executive offices also located in Birmingham, Alabama. The company is currently the 16th largest utility company in the world and the...

. Gulf Power Company is headquartered in Pensacola, Florida

Pensacola, Florida

Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...

, and has a service territory that spans 7550 square miles (19,554.4 km²), through 10 counties and 71 towns in northwest Florida. They own 1600 miles (2,574.9 km) of transmission lines and 7636 miles (12,288.9 km) of distribution lines (1,748 underground) that stretch from the western Alabama border to the Apalachicola River

Apalachicola River

The Apalachicola River is a river, approximately 112 mi long in the State of Florida. This river's large watershed, known as the ACF River Basin for short, drains an area of approximately into the Gulf of Mexico. The distance to its farthest headstream in northeast Georgia is approximately 500...

 and from the northern Alabama border to the Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...

. 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 mi/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
  Pensacola, Florida
  Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...
  
   – causing the old Allis-Chalmers
  Allis-Chalmers
  The Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co. of West Allis, Wisconsin, is an American company known for its past as a manufacturer with diverse interests, perhaps most famous for their bright Persian Orange farm tractors...
  
   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
  World War II
  World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
  
   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.

Fossil fuel power plants

Plant	Nearest City	Units	Total Capacity
James F. Crist Electric Generating Plant	Pensacola, Florida Pensacola, Florida Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...	4	930,000 kW
Herbert Scholz Electric Generating Plant	Sneads, Florida Sneads, Florida Sneads is a town in Jackson County, Florida, United States. The population was 1,919 at the 2000 census. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 1,911 .-Geography:Sneads is located at ....	2	92,000 kW
Lansing Smith Electric Generating Plant	Panama City, Florida Panama City, Florida -Personal income:The median income for a household in the city was $31,572, and the median income for a family was $40,890. Males had a median income of $30,401 versus $21,431 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,830...	4	945,000 kW
Gulf Power also owns a percentage of the following generating units
Plant	Nearest City	Ownership Percentage	Total Capacity
Victor J. Daniel Electric Generating Plant (Plant Daniel Plant Daniel The Victor J. Daniel Electric Generating Plant is a major 2-gigawatt, four-unit fossil fuel power plant, generating about 1 GWe from two coal-fired subcritical drum-type units and 1 GWe from its two newer, gas-fired combined-cycle units. Plant Daniel is located in Jackson County, near Escatawpa,... )	Escatawpa, Mississippi Escatawpa, Mississippi Escatawpa is a census-designated place in Jackson County, Mississippi, United States. It is part of the Pascagoula, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 3,566 at the 2000 census.-History:...	506,500 kW (50%)	2,000,000 kW
Robert W. Scherer Steam-Electric Generating Plant (Plant Scherer)	Juliette, Georgia Juliette, Georgia Juliette is an unincorporated community in Monroe County, Georgia, United States. Named for Juliette McCracken, daughter of a railroad engineer, the town formed with the merging of Brownsville and Iceberg. The film Fried Green Tomatoes was filmed there, and the town has been the focal point of two...	210,900 kW (25%)	3,272,000 kW
Commercial generation Pea Ridge	Pea Ridge, Florida Pace, Florida Pace is a census-designated place in Santa Rosa County, Florida, United States. The population was 7,393 during the 2000 census. It is part of the Pensacola–Ferry Pass–Brent Metropolitan Statistical Area.According to Pace CDP Census 2010 results, the population of the area was...	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.

Environment & Conservation

As of 2008, Gulf Power has reduced its overall plant emissions by 73 percent since 1992, while energy demand has increased nearly 20 percent in northwest Florida.

External links

• Gulf Power Official Site
• Southern Company Parent Company
• http://www.gulfpower.com/about/pdf/FactCard.pdf - Gulf Power Facts 2008