New opportunity for MUSH customers

In a company and industry full of acronyms, perhaps none offers as many chuckles, or head scratches, as MUSH.

Municipalities, Universities, School and Hospitals. For Mississippi Power, these major accounts are no laughing matter.

And thanks to the company’s recent certification as an Energy Services Provider, we can once again offer customers in the MUSH market enhanced services and financing options.

“As an Energy Service Provider, we not only identify the energy and cost saving opportunities for a customer, but we can also arrange for project financing, with no up-front capital investment,” Marketing Project Developer Melissa Little said. “As a licensed contractor with the State of Mississippi, we can procure and install equipment and provide ongoing maintenance services.”

Traditional energy audits for these customers tended to identify broad opportunities for improvements that would frequently fail to be fully implemented, if at all.

According to Little, the typical project now includes a bundling of measures with low and high returns on investment. For example, the annual cost savings from lighting and water fixture upgrades can help pay for a new HVAC, chillers, boilers and more.

“We’re assisting our customers implement cost effective measures that will produce real savings and infrastructure improvements that will allow them to be competitive in their markets,” Little said.

While advertising these services and financing options to MUSH customers is new, the company has completed more than $65 million worth of these projects with federal customers.

“At Camp Shelby, we’ve upgraded interior and exterior lighting, installed a dehumidifier and improved their HVAC controls,” Little said. “We won an award from the Army for our work in 2007, so this is an area where we’ve demonstrated our expertise for quite some time.”

In the company’s application to become an Energy Services Provider with the Department of Energy, a representative from Camp Shelby wrote, “Mississippi Power provided proactive, immediate and continuous coverage of installed items and upgraded systems…to the complete satisfaction of the Department of Public Works.”

Similar projects have been completed at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport.

Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company (NYSE: SO), produces safe, reliable and environmentally responsible energy for more than 188,000 customers in 23 southeast Mississippi counties. With nearly 160 megawatts of approved solar energy capacity, Mississippi Power is the largest partner in providing renewable energy in the state of Mississippi. Visit our website at mississippipower.com, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

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