Manufacturers in Georgia cranked up operations in recent months, a good sign for a recovering economy, said Tom Fanning, chief executive of Georgia Power parent Southern Co.
An array of industries — from chemicals to paper and transportation — had strong increases in energy use in the last quarter compared to a year ago, a sign that business is picking up.
“These are big numbers,” said Fanning, who spoke Wednesday after the power company issued quarterly results.
But residential use has been essentially flat when weather is factored out. Fanning ties that to stagnant incomes.
Fanning, who is deputy chair on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said he believes improving unemployment numbers are misleading, with people dropping out of the job market and many new hires landing only part-time or low-paying positions.
Georgia’s residential energy use has grown more than in other Southern markets, which include parts of Florida, Mississippi and Alabama. Most of the 13,000 residential customers Southern has added in recent months were in Georgia.
Southern said profit more than doubled in the second quarter compared to the same period of 2013. Retail sales rose 2.1 percent, led by a 3 percent gain in industrial sales.
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