October 28, 2009 (FinancialWire) — Southern Co. (NYSE: SO) said it has been awarded a $165 million in stimulus funds as part of president Obama’s plan to invest $3.4 billion to spur transition to a smarter energy grid.

The company received the grant to integrate smart-grid technology into its transmission and distribution system with the goal of reducing the loss of electricity as it moves from the generating plant to homes and businesses.

Southern said that smart grid technology will also help it to better locate the area of an outage before dispatching crews, thus reducing outage time for customers.

The technology should also improve monitoring and control capabilities of the system while enhancing proven grid reliability.

Among the technologies to be deployed will be line devices with two-way communication that will enable system operators to isolate faulted lines remotely.

Southern said it will match the $165 million in funding as part of an initiative across the company’s service territory that spans the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi.

Atlanta-based Southern is an energy company with 4.4 million customers and more than 42,000 megawatts of generating capacity serving the Southeast.

Southern owns electric utilities in four states.

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