SHREVEPORT, La., November 9, 2006 – American Electric Power’s operating unit Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) has announced the official names of its three proposed generation plants to meet the electricity demands of its customers.
 
SWEPCO proposes to build a new baseload coal-fired 600-megawatt power plant by 2011 at a site near Fulton in Hempstead County, Ark., near Texarkana. The plant will use an advanced clean coal combustion technology called ultra-supercritical and will bear the name of “John W. Turk, Jr. Power Plant,” A 39-year employee, Turk pioneered the company’s fuel shift from natural gas to coal in the 1970s, when he crafted one of the first electric utility contracts for Powder River Basin coal from Wyoming. In the 1980s he added lignite to SWEPCO’s fuel mix. Turk served as president and chief executive officer from 1983-1988. He graduated from the University of Texas and lives in Longview.

The company proposes to build a 480-megawatt, combined-cycle natural gas-fired plant at its existing Arsenal Hill Power Plant location in Shreveport, La. to meet additional electricity demand growth through 2010 and beyond. This unit will be christened the “J. Lamar Stall Unit at Arsenal Hill.” Stall served as company president and CEO at SWEPCO from 1971-1983. A Louisiana native and graduate of Louisiana Tech University, this 37-year employee calls Shreveport home.

SWEPCO’s more immediate power requirements for 2007 to 2009 requires up to 480-megawatts of simple-cycle natural gas combustion turbine (CT) peaking generation in Tontitown, near Fayetteville, Ark. The plant will be named the “Harry D. Mattison Power Plant” in honor of a former SWEPCO president and CEO from 1988-1990. A 33-year employee, Mattison is a native Arkansan and graduated from the University of Arkansas.
 
SWEPCO serves 462,000 customers in three states: 112,000 in western Arkansas, 181,000 in Northwest Louisiana, and 169,000 in East Texas.
News releases and other information about SWEPCO can be found on the World Wide Web at http://swepco.com.

American Electric Power is one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, delivering electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states.  AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 36,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S.  AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined.  AEP’s utility units operate as AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana and east Texas).  American Electric Power, based in Columbus, Ohio, is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2006.