Birmingham, Ala.
www.amazingalabama.com

Columbus, Ohio
www.aeped.com

      AEP invested $2.3 billion in its transmission system between 2001 and 2007. In the past few years, it has adopted a leading role in pushing for a nationwide interstate transmission system modeled after the national interstate highway network. Unveiled in 2006, the "I-765" project is named after the 765-kilovolt transmission technology AEP proposes to use for the system. In 2008, it launched a joint venture with Duke Energy to build $1 billion worth of transmission infrastructure in Indiana.
      While AEP has exercised caution and restrained spending on projects due to the recession, it plans to bring its renewable energy portfolio to more than 2,600 MW by the end of 2011. That includes a proposal to build a system to connect wind farms in the High Plains with the Chicago regional marketplace. rom its poles in the Carolinas and the Midwest, Duke operates one of the most comprehensive sets of economic development programs in the nation. The team's efforts contributed to the creation of 12,164 new jobs in 2008, associated with more than $2.9 billion in corporate capital investment. The long list of projects includes major expansions from BMW in South Carolina, Celgard in North Carolina, GE Aviation in Ohio, ZF Steering Systems in Kentucky and Steel Dynamics in Indiana.
      A menu of economic development riders serves business customers in all five states Duke serves. Due to the continued success of the Site Readiness Program in the Carolinas (assessing 60 industrial sites and five potential mega-sites since 2005), counties have submitted 11 new sites for evaluation in 2009.
      Duke is partnering with GM and other utilities to lay the groundwork for the large-scale launch of plug-in electric vehicles, and with AREVA to develop biopower plants using wood waste. Equipment for the company's new integrated gasification combined-cycle plant in Indiana began arriving on site in summer 2009.
      Duke Energy Ohio was named "Ohio Business of the Year 2007" in 2008 by Green Energy Ohio. In July 2009, David O. Smith, director of economic development for Duke's Ohio/Kentucky region, was elected president of the Utility Economic Development Association. n 2008, Teamwork Arkansas launched a domestic corporate headquarters visitation program, available to up to four community economic developers.The year also saw the certification of Entergy's first "Select Site" mega-site, a 2,045-acre (828-hectare) parcel in Saline County. In Mississippi, the utility's eight-person team held a recruiting and marketing "boot camp" and hosted an automotive industry supplier conference. In Louisiana, the utility worked with a site selector and the Northeast Louisiana Economic Alliance to evaluate 10 sites, worked with Southeastern University on work force training and hosted its 20th annual Team City Conference.
      Projects included America's Choice Products' $8-million, 425-job investment in Newport, Ark.; investments from Evergreen Packaging, Stant Manufacturing and Pine Bluff Poultry in Pine Bluff, Ark.; Mississippi projects from Brown Bottling Group in Rankin County and Denbury Resources in Natchez; the Shaw Group project in Lake Charles, known as "Project Sonoma;" and a new testing center for EA Sports on the campus of LSU in Baton Rouge, known by the not-so-secretive code name of "Project Madden."
      In 2009, Teamwork Arkansas launched the Arkansas Site Selection Center at ArkansasSiteSelection.com, and Entergy Louisiana has teamed with Louisiana Economic Development to launch their own Site Selection Center, at LousianaSiteSelection.com/LED. n 2008 the FirstEnergy team helped cultivate more than $3.7 billion in corporate facility investment, expected to create more than 10,960 jobs.
      FirstEnergy participated in trade missions to Canada and Mexico that led to 48 qualified leads for participating companies. It also partnered with Ohio at the Hanover Trade Fair in Germany, meeting with more than 360 companies there. Other promotional efforts involved life sciences in New Jersey and promoting Ohio as a food processing location at Pack Expo 2008 in Chicago.
      2008 projects included a 100-job investment from Bookmasters and a 200-job investment from Mustang Dynamometer in Ohio, and investments from pharma firms Mallinckrodt Baker and Novartis ($25 million) in New Jersey. Since 2008, the utility has signed hundreds of new supply agreements with customers in ComEd and Ameren territories, the result of entering the Illinois market in 2008.
      Among the sustainability measures FirstEnergy is pursuing is the retrofit of its coal-fired R.E. Burger plant in Ohio to generate electricity principally from biomass. It will join a renewable generation portfolio that includes 451 MW of pumped-storage hydro and 376 MW of wind power. ne of three Southern Co. utilities to be honored this year, Georgia Power's economic development team worked to bring corporate investment of $1.8 billion from 84 companies to its state, with the potential to create more than 8,400 jobs.
      Projects included those from three Kia suppliers in west Georgia, Oldcastle Materials in Camak, Suniva in Norcross, Whirlpool in McDonough and Home Depot in Valdosta.
      In its most significant technology upgrade in two decades, the utility's community and economic development organization launched SelectGeorgia (www.SelectGeorgia.net). In addition to offering a panoply of cutting-edge functions and data, the site has resulted in a 75-percent reduction in related software maintenance and a 70-percent reduction in the department's technology maintenance labor. Concurrent with the project, Georgia Power's continuing internal data quality project ("Project DQ") kicked off in August 2008, and had helped to update data on 154 sites by year end.
      The department also made major upgrades to its Georgia Resource Center, an executive meeting facility used for conferences and prospect visits; produced a new metro Atlanta map and Atlanta overview publications as well as new region-specific brochures, and created a new Web portal to aid potential Volkswagen suppliers looking at northwest Georgia, near VW's new plant now under construction in Chattanooga, Tenn. ydro-Québec has played a major role in bringing to fruition major investments from such companies as REC Silicon in Bécancour. Mentioned on prominent site selectors' lists of favorites, the utility also seems to be pleasing the larger universe of its major customers, with a gradual improvement in overall satisfaction since 2001. Low cost is quite satisfying: Every year, Hydro-Québec carries out a comparative analysis of electricity prices in 20 major North American cities. Its home region is inevitably among the top three in low cost, if not the outright leader.
      Hydro-Québec generates its own economic development too. In 2008 alone, Hydro-Québec équipement carried out C$2.4 billion in generation and transmission work across Québec. In fact, the utility was pursuing no fewer than 18 different generation projects in the province, as of mid-July 2009, in addition to seven transmission projects currently under construction and another 10 under study.
      They include what is being described as the largest construction project in Canada: a new 1,550-MW, four-plant hydroelectric complex on the Romaine River in Havre-Saint-Pierre that has been in development for decades. Construction of the plants and a permanent 93-mile (150-km.) road will cost an estimated C$6.5 billion (US$5.9 billion). Average annual production at the complex is anticipated to be 8 terawatt-hours, enough to power more than 450,000 households or the cities of Québec, Saguenay, and Longueuil combined. The utility is also engaged with New England utilities in developing a transmission project that will cross the border and replace some of that region's expensive gas-fired generation with low-cost hydropower. ational Grid saw a healthy number of projects come to its territory in 2008. It also was concerned with the health and well-being of its customers and citizens, as it pursued new energy efficiency and a smart grid project now seeking $200 million in federal stimulus funding. The utility, along with Empire State Development, also holds the distinction of having helped promulgate the term "shovel ready" in association with the state's site development program well before it became a byword of the Obama administration.
      Major corporate projects in the region served by National Grid include the GlobalFoundries semiconductor complex in Malta, N.Y. Others of recent vintage include Dresser-Rand's technology center in Olean, API Heat Transfer in Cheektowaga, and Metro Paper Industries in Watertown. Helping projects consider Upstate New York is the state's popular Empire Zone program – utilities offer special rates for projects within the zones.
      Among National Grid's resources is a "Best Practices Library," which includes presentation materials from an energy efficiency conference the utility convened in early 2009. Its own best practices include extensive community involvement throughout its multi-state Northeast territory, such as the June investment of $250,000 in the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences to create and enhance programs that encourage Buffalo Public School students to pursue education and careers in science and engineering. In May 2009, it opened a new New England corporate office in Waltham, Mass., that is destined for LEED-Gold certification. That same month, in response to new state legislation, it joined with eight other Massachusetts utilities to unveil a three-year plan to deliver services to residents and businesses that will ultimately net more than $4 billion in energy savings. n early 2009, Progress Energy achieved the highest rank for its region in satisfying electric utility business customers, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Electric Utility Business Customer Satisfaction Study. Any questions?
      If there are, the economic development team at Progress is ready to answer them. Among innovative programs Progress pursued in 2008 were a media relations seminar for economic development professionals, a mock RFP exercise and its continuing investment in new infrastructure grants in South Carolina, pursuant to that state's license fee credit program. The utility's executives continue to serve prominently in state and regional economic development organizations.
      Success stories in 2008 included projects from GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy in Wilmington, N.C.; International Knife & Saw in Florence, S.C.; and Draper Labs in St. Petersburg, Fla. All told, the utility helped foster more than $2.5 billion in corporate investment, attached to the eventual creation of more than 8,340 jobs.
      The utility's plans to build two nuclear reactors in Florida moved forward in early August 2009 with the state's approval of its plan for a Levy County facility – the first approval of a nuclear plant project in Florida in 30 years. Back in its home territory of Raleigh, Progress is planning to purchase electricity from a new solar farm being built by a Durham company in Roxboro. he perennial leader in utility economic development helped create 41,600 jobs and $5.5 billion in corporate investment in its seven-state territory in 2008 – an impressive staying of the course compared to 45,000 jobs and $5.6 billion in 2007.
      Projects included VW and SAIC in Tennessee, Wabash National in Kentucky and RTI International Metals in Mississippi.
      Among the ongoing offerings TVA makes available to prospects and to community economic developers, its TVAed.com Web site leads the way, followed closely by its standard-setting Megasite certification program it's offered in concert with McCallum Sweeney Consulting since 2004. In 2008 the utility's services to communities included Web site evaluations and instruction in finance.
      In May 2009, TVA announced its participation in a solar energy-based economic development program that also involves the State of Tennessee, the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. TVA is even getting in on the solar action itself, by installing a 5-MW solar farm on its Megasite in Hollywood County in western Tennessee.