Across the corporate landscape, there is no shortage of companies claiming a leadership position in innovation. At Southern Company, our focus on innovation and building America’s energy future is no idle claim. Our pursuit of new energy solutions is inextricably tied to our longstanding commitment to customers, and our resolve to continually refine and improve the products and services we provide for the benefit of the customers and communities we serve.
The cornerstone of innovation at Southern Company is employee engagement in a culture that values out-of-the-box thinking. Employees are empowered to advance new ideas and better ways of accomplishing their daily work. In 2015, we established our Energy Innovation Center in Atlanta, not as the sole focus of innovation efforts, but as a resource that enables employees with the tools to identify business challenges and encourage forward-thinking solutions.
Through our participation in venture capital fund Energy Impact Partners, we put capital to work to seed early stage ideas and engage directly with emerging technologies and new business models.
Since the 1960s, Southern Company’s R&D efforts have explored a variety of new energy technologies for the generation, delivery and end-use of electricity. Today, we recognize that research and development is more important than ever in a rapidly evolving energy environment.
For example, at Alabama Power’s Technology Applications Center in Calera, Alabama, Southern Company is studying the use of energy for indoor agriculture, which can potentially eliminate food deserts, help bolster local food supplies and bring fresh produce to urban communities and other areas where large plots of land are not readily available for growing, or where the climate is not conducive to outdoor farming.