Southern Company is a holding company that owns regulated electric and natural gas utilities serving roughly 9 million customers across the Southeast U.S. The core of the business is three vertically integrated electric utilities — Alabama Power, Georgia Power, and Mississippi Power — serving about 4.6 million retail electric customers across Alabama, Georgia, and southeastern Mississippi. Being vertically integrated means Southern Company owns generation, transmission, and distribution, giving it a one-stop-shop capability for large new customers. Southern Company also owns four natural gas distribution utilities under Southern Company Gas, serving roughly 4.4 million customers across Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, operating about 77,900 miles of pipeline. Both businesses operate as regulated monopolies, earning returns through rates set by state public service commissions. Rate base growth is the primary earnings driver, and Southern Company projects ~9% average annual state-regulated rate base growth through 2030. Southern Company also runs Southern Power, a competitive wholesale power business with over 13 GW of generation capacity, selling electricity under long-term power purchase agreements to utilities, cooperatives, and industrial customers. Southern Company's central growth opportunity is surging electricity demand from data centers and large industrial customers in the Southeast, having contracted 10 GW of large load through 26 signed agreements. To serve this demand, Southern Company has an $81B five-year capital plan, roughly 95% allocated to state-regulated utilities, focused on new generation, transmission, and distribution.