Southern Company (SO)

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Southern's Kemper County energy facility not yet fully operational?

Southern Co.'s (SO +0.3%) Mississippi Power says its Kemper County energy facility is still not yet fully operational, as it continues to assess the project's schedule and cost.

The plant is three years behind the originally scheduled May 2014 completion, and what was estimated to be a $2.9B project when construction began in 2010 has ballooned to $7.3B, with costs rising by millions of dollars every month.

Mississippi Power says it will file a rate case on Monday with the state's Public Service Commission, laying out its argument for raising customer rates to recover those costs.