Air Quality
More Power, Fewer Emissions
Every day our employees are helping to improve Alabama’s air quality. Our 6,900 employees who live and work in the state are committed to improving air quality by consistently meeting and surpassing the standards set by the federal government to protect human health and the environment and implementing a vigorous compliance and auditing program.
Our Investments, Our Reductions
Since the late 1990s, Alabama Power has spent $4 billion to meet federal environmental mandates related to air. Since 1996, we have reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by 98 percent and 89 percent, respectively.
Technology for Cleaner Air
For decades, we have made significant investments in scrubber and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technologies to meet regulations to reduce emissions. Recently, we have added a baghouse and chemical injection technologies while adjusting our fuel mix to meet additional regulations.
- A baghouse has been installed on one of our coal-fired electric generating units to reduce mercury, acid gases and dust particulate matter emissions. It occupies over 2 million cubic feet – equivalent to the water from 23 Olympic-sized swimming pools – and use enough filtering fabric to cover 15 football fields. Chemical injection systems have been installed on all of our coal-fired generating units to reduce acid gases and/or mercury emissions.
- Scrubbers remove or “scrub” SO2 emissions from the exhaust of six coal-fired units. Scrubbers are very effective and ours are designed to remove about 98 percent of the SO2 from flue gas.
- SCR systems operate like catalytic converters on your car, only they are enormous – each one stands 13 stories tall and could cover half a football field. A SCR can reduce NOx emissions by about 80 percent.
Water Management
As one of the largest water managers in the state, we devote great effort to preserving the environment by mindfully managing its water resources.
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