Data centers need large amounts of power, and Southern Company (SO), an electric utility owner and operator, stands to benefit. The stock offers a 3.4% dividend yield paid quarterly; the article estimates that earning an average of $600 a month ($7,200 a year) would require investing about $212,000 at the current price. Data center electricity use across the system grew 55% year over year in the second quarter, and active data center load exceeded 1.2 GW, up 500 MW from a year earlier. The company has over 17 GW of large-load agreements coming online through the mid-2030s, including a 25-year, 3.2 GW contract for Georgia Power to serve OpenAI's data center campus in Effingham County. It plans to build 10 GW of new generation and, with Google, is uprating the Vogtle and Hatch nuclear plants to add 96 MW.
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