About

Power Player and Philanthropist

As Georgia Power’s chair, president and CEO, Paul Bowers leads a company focused on innovation and community involvement

By Susan Percy

Paul Bowers has seen the utility industry through a lot of ebbing and flowing since he began his career at Gulf Power, a Southern Co. subsidiary, in 1979.

Initially he was drawn to the combination of meaningful work and opportunity for innovation. “Think about what we do in terms of creating a value for our customers in the Southeast and creating a better quality of life with electrification,” he says. “But it’s also innovation that was taking place even back then. We were one of the forerunners of energy efficiency. That intrigued me.”

It is safe to say that Bowers, a Pensacola native who rose through the ranks to become chair, president and CEO of Georgia Power, also a part of Southern Co., in 2010, found what he was looking for, perhaps more.

He has led his organization through changes and challenges, including a tough series of hearings last fall before the Georgia Public Service Commission to determine the fate of two nuclear reactors (owned by Georgia Power and three smaller utilities), now under construction at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro. In December, the commission voted unanimously to allow the project to continue.

In the realm of community service and philanthropy, Bowers has not simply honored but intensified the company’s involvement.

For his leadership and civic involvement on a personal and corporate level, Bowers has been named a 2018 Georgia Trustee, the state’s highest honor, given jointly by the Georgia Historical Society and the Governor’s Office.

“When you think about the energy platforms in the United States,” he says, “capacity was being built significantly in the ’70s and ’80s in terms of big central generating stations – coal plants, nuclear plants.” Then came an energy-efficiency focus, partly driven by an awareness that natural gas was finite. “We wanted to stop the import of energy from around the world, especially the Middle East,” he recalls. “Technology was [about] how to make power plants more energy efficient. Early in the ’80s and ’90s, renewables were more costly than central station plants.”

The development of the fracking technique, which uses pressurized liquid to fracture rock and allow natural gas and oil to flow more freely, in the late ’90s, Bowers says, spurred the expansion of the natural gas infrastructure. “It created an abundance of energy in the U.S. That in itself has become a driver for the economy.” And it has helped reshape the utility industry.

“If you think about the utility space and tracking all those changes, you run back to how do you serve the customer most effectively and efficiently,” Bowers says.

“At the early stage, all customers wanted was really a low price. The focus of the industry was delivering the most affordable-price energy that we could. Then it evolved to affordability and reliability. Customers didn’t like being offline, didn’t like having their TV not being workable. So reliability became an increased level of focus.”

It added what Bowers calls an “I-want-my-answers-now” attitude on the part of customers. “We have to respond to that. We’ve created social media platforms, come up with all kinds of ways to communicate to our customers about what’s going on.”

It’s not enough to be responsive, he says. “We also have to be innovative, as technology advances and moves. We’re involved in all kinds of research, involved in battery technology, electric vehicles, where the chargers are. What is the best application for customers in terms of solar? Can we buy a community solar farm to serve a neighborhood, or can we purchase wind out of the Midwest to serve customers that may want that? We’re involved in a broad way to meet our customers’ needs.”

Nuclear’s Future

Not surprisingly, Bowers is a fervent advocate for nuclear power, which has been a part of Georgia Power’s portfolio for a long time; the recent PSC thumbs-up for Plant Vogtle ensures that nuclear remains a key component of the state’s energy future.

The construction project has experienced delays and cost overruns, exacerbated by the bankruptcy of contractor Westinghouse last spring. A bill passed by the Georgia General Assembly in 2009 has allowed the utility to charge customers a cost recovery fee throughout construction.

The original cost estimate was $14.3 billion, with a projected completion date of 2017. Estimates now are $23 billion, with one unit expected to come online in 2021 and the other in 2022. The PSC approval includes new financial penalties for Georgia Power in the event of further delays and cost increases.

“When you look at the energy infrastructure for America,” Bowers says, “if you have aspirations for a CO2 – or emission-constrained environment – you look at the portfolio, nuclear has to be a dominant solution. It’s the only ‘non-emittant’ resource that produces economy energy for the customer.”

He notes there are 104 commercial nuclear reactors in the U.S., but the number is projected to dip below 90 as older reactors are retired.

“At the same time [there are] aspirational goals to reduce carbon emissions,” he says. “You’ve got to have nuclear in the mix.” New reactors have a projected life span of 60 to 80 years, he says.

“They will produce energy on a marginal basis at one cent a kilowatt hour. They are the foundation of the energy industry infrastructure. When we look at Vogtle 3 and 4 coming into the mix, it is a non-emittant resource. As we are turning down the number of coal plants in the state, we’ve got to have baseload capacity come up, no matter what you have in solar or wind.”

Bowers says the national security implications of nuclear power are significant, “from the standpoint of having a nuclear platform and the way we are constructing those plants and having a platform for the U.S. to be a leader. We need the technology to go into international markets right now. If we don’t, Russia and China are going to be the only ones producing it.”

Vogtle’s units are the only reactors currently being built in the U.S. “Around the world,” Bowers says, “60 are being built, and another 12 are in late-stage planning. Seventy-two plants around the world in construction phase, and we’re only building one. You want emissions to be reduced? How are you going to do it?”

The Gift of Leadership

Georgia Power has been around for 136 years and has long played a leading role in economic development, especially in local communities. Bowers sees this as a key responsibility.

“Companies have to have perspective, go beyond the bottom line, have to embrace the communities they serve and make them better. How do we create opportunity? That’s economic development. Every community in the state has a different niche.

“We want to enhance that aspect and make them attractive for growth, because that gives the community a tax base. The tax base supports education, creates a platform for households to expand,” he says.

“And there is a self-interest in that – the use of our product is expanded as well.”

As part of its commitment to economic development – and to customer service – the utility pays serious attention to developing its leaders.

“What we do in Southern Company is to prepare for the responsibility of leadership,” Bowers says. “As we get more and more responsibility, we have a depth of knowledge about the fundamentals of the business. We want you to be knowledgeable and have depth in finance, the technical side – and be able to look at external issues associated with regulatory or being able to make a deal.”

His own style of leadership involves helping others to be successful. “The gift of leadership is something you have to honor. You have titles – manager or supervisor or director. Those are significant titles, but that just describes responsibility. A leader is trying to maximize the potential of the organization and individuals within that organization.

“It’s [about] service to others,” Bowers says. “You are there to provide a platform for others to be successful. How do you energize an organization? How do you get the organization to be willing to trust the direction you’re going?

“I want my legacy to be all the people that grew, that assumed responsibility, that became leaders themselves.”

Community Involvement

Bowers, who first came to Georgia in 1990, has a long personal history of involvement in civic and educational endeavors, including service on the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and the boards of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the Metro Atlanta Chamber and the Georgia Research Alliance. He is chair of the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Foundation and a past chair of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education.

“I’ve been given this great opportunity in my life. So how do you pay it forward? How do you engage? I’ve been focused on education – if you can just touch one student and make their lives better, give them that platform to show their potential and give them the foundation from an educational standpoint, the sky is the limit.”

He has enhanced his company’s involvement as well: “We have engaged as a company in education, gotten back into classrooms,” he says, referencing projects involving the Ron Clark Academy and promoting STEM curriculum.

To his Georgia Power team, he poses the questions: “What is your passion? Where do you want to invest your legacy and your dollars or resources?”

Last year, employees donated more than 100,000 hours of community service through the organization’s statewide Citizens of Georgia volunteer program. “If you look at the most significant issues in the state, Georgia Power is there,” Bowers says. “We don’t want anybody left behind.”

Of his selection as a Georgia Trustee, he says simply, “It’s a great honor. I want to strive to be like Pete Correll or Jimmy Blanchard – I’m humbled.”