COLUMBUS, Ohio, Nov. 29, 2006 – American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) announced today that its Columbus Southern Power utility subsidiary has agreed to purchase the Darby Electric Generating Station from DPL Energy, LLC, a subsidiary of DPL Inc., for approximately $102 million.

The transaction is contingent on the receipt of required regulatory approvals from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and federal clearance pursuant to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, and is expected to close in the first half of 2007.

The Darby plant, located approximately 20 miles southwest of Columbus, Ohio, near Mount Sterling, is a natural-gas, simple-cycle power plant with a nominal generating capacity of 480 megawatts and a summer capacity of approximately 450 megawatts. The plant began commercial operation in 2001.

“Our forecasts indicate that the growing electricity needs of customers in our eastern seven states’ footprint will soon be beyond the capabilities of our existing fleet of power plants,” said Michael G. Morris, AEP’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. “Our strategy for meeting growth in demand includes two equally important facets: the construction of new plants, like the clean-coal Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle generation projects we are pursuing in Ohio and West Virginia, and the acquisition of recently completed gas-fired merchant plants when the price is right.

“The IGCC plants and our existing fleet of coal-fired plants in our eastern seven states will continue to supply the bulk of our customers’ demand and energy requirements on a daily basis,” Morris said. “Natural gas-fired merchant plants like Darby, as well as the Waterford and Ceredo plants that we acquired last year, have a purchase price well below the cost to build a new, comparable plant. This lower initial purchase price together with the fact that these plants will primarily be used during peak periods when our customer demand is high provide an economically efficient way to meet our customers’ electricity needs while keeping energy costs low.”

The Darby plant will help AEP keep pace with 2 percent annual growth in peak demand in its eastern service area and help the company maintain the 15 percent reserve margin required by the PJM Interconnection to ensure reliability. When the transaction closes, AEP will operate the Darby plant as part of the company’s generation pool that provides power to AEP’s utility units serving customers in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

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.

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This report made by AEP and certain of its subsidiaries contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Although AEP and each of its registrant subsidiaries believe that their expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, any such statements may be influenced by factors that could cause actual outcomes and results to be materially different from those projected. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are: electric load and customer growth; weather conditions, including storms; available sources and costs of, and transportation for, fuels and the creditworthiness of fuel suppliers and transporters; availability of generating capacity and the performance of AEP’s generating plants; the ability to recover regulatory assets and stranded costs in connection with deregulation; the ability to build or require generating capacity when needed at acceptable prices and terms and to recover those costs through applicable rate cases or competitive rates; the ability to recover increases in fuel and other energy costs through regulated or competitive electric rates; new legislation, litigation and government regulation including requirements for reduced emissions of sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, carbon and other substances; timing and resolution of pending and future rate cases, negotiations and other regulatory decisions (including rate or other recovery for new investments, transmission service and environmental compliance); resolution of litigation (including pending Clean Air Act enforcement actions and disputes arising from the bankruptcy of Enron Corp. and related matters); AEP´s ability to constrain its operation and maintenance costs; AEP´s ability to sell assets at acceptable prices and on other acceptable terms; the economic climate and growth in AEP´s service territory and changes in market demand and demographic patterns; inflationary and interest rate trends; AEP´s ability to develop and execute a strategy based on a view regarding prices of electricity, natural gas, and other energy-related commodities; changes in the creditworthiness of the counterparties with whom AEP has contractual arrangements, including participants in the energy trading market; changes in the financial markets, particularly those affecting the availability of capital and AEP´s ability to refinance existing debt at attractive rates; actions of rating agencies, including changes in the ratings of debt; volatility and changes in markets for electricity, natural gas, and other energy-related commodities; changes in utility regulation, including implementation of EPACT and membership in and integration into regional transmission structures; accounting pronouncements periodically issued by accounting standard-setting bodies; the performance of AEP´s pension and other postretirement benefit plans; prices for power that AEP generates and sells at wholesale; changes in technology, particularly with respect to new, developing or alternative sources of generation, and other risks and unforeseen events, including wars, the effects of terrorism (including increased security costs), embargoes and other catastrophic events.