LEW HANES: What about the timing for purchasing power from outside sources?

Another challenge we have to take into consideration is what we call our southwest quadrant.  The SWQ is a portion of Alabama, Florida and Mississippi that is limited in how many megawatts we can export out of that area due to stability problems.  If you have excess generation in that area and you reach your maximum quadrant export limit, you can no longer load the additional generation in that area. If it becomes necessary to shed the interruptible customers mentioned above, you cannot shed the interruptible customers inside the southwest quadrant if you are at the quadrant's maximum export limit. If you cut the load inside the quadrant, you increase the exports.
 

The problem is that the transmission system coming out of the southwest quadrant is not capable of handling all of the excess generation.  If you have certain outages in that area, you can cause the quadrant to actually separate from the rest of the system.  This could cause generator damage.

LEW HANES: What would you do if you've had a very mild day and no one has his air conditioner on?  Do you take some of the plants off-line, or reduce output?

BILL MELTON: Units can be removed from service if the mild weather is for an extended period of time but you must keep in mind the start-up and shut-down costs associated with the units involved. It may be in the best interest of the system, and more economical, to keep units on the line, or off the line as the case may be, if change in weather conditions is for a short period of time.