HOUSTON, Jun 23, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Reliant Energy announced today that it is investing approximately
$50 million to reduce mercury emissions at five Pennsylvania
coal-fired generating plants. The investment will allow removal of at
least 80 percent of the mercury content of the coal burned at
Shawville, Portland, Conemaugh, Titus and New Castle stations.
Together with existing and already committed controls at other units,
this investment will ensure Reliant's fleetwide compliance with
Pennsylvania's Phase 1 Mercury Regulations.

Installation of these emission control systems that clean the air
through activated carbon injection will begin in the first quarter of
2009 and will be completed by December 2009. The Mer-Cure(TM) Sorbent
Injection Systems are designed by Alstom, an international leader in
air quality control and environmental protection systems.

"We are committed to environmental stewardship and have developed
a comprehensive program to reduce our environmental footprint," said
Mark Jacobs, Reliant Energy president and chief executive officer.
"The mercury removal plan announced today will improve air quality for
our neighbors and is an important element of our overall program."

Reliant Energy operates 19 power plants in Pennsylvania and
employs more than 1,000 people in the state. At these Pennsylvania
locations, Reliant is investing more than $435 million in emissions
control related improvements. In addition to the investment in mercury
emissions reduction systems announced today, Reliant is investing $375
million at the Keystone and Cheswick plants to install scrubber
systems to remove sulfur dioxide that will be completed in 2009, and
more than $10 million in upgrades to the existing scrubbers at the
Elrama station.

The scrubber installations at Keystone and Cheswick, in addition
to existing selective catalytic reduction systems for control of
nitrogen oxides, are expected to bring these two plants into
compliance with the Pennsylvania Phase I Mercury Regulations. They
will also comply with the plant-wide mercury removal requirements of
the Pennsylvania Phase II Mercury Regulations more than five years
before those requirements take effect in 2015.

Reliant Energy, Inc. (NYSE:RRI) based in Houston, Texas, provides
electricity and energy services to retail and wholesale customers in
the United States. The company provides service to approximately 1.8
million retail electricity customers primarily in Texas, including
residential and small business customers. Reliant also serves
commercial, industrial, governmental and institutional customers in
the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, Delaware,
Washington, D.C. and New York.

The company is one of the largest independent power producers in
the nation with approximately 16,000 megawatts of power generation
capacity across the United States. These strategically located
generating assets utilize natural gas, fuel oil and coal. For more
information, visit http://www.reliant.com.

Alstom is a global leader in the world of power generation and
rail infrastructure and sets the benchmark for innovative and
environmentally friendly technologies. Alstom builds the fastest train
and the highest capacity automated metro in the world, and provides
turnkey integrated power plant solutions and associated services for a
wide variety of energy sources, including hydro, nuclear, gas, coal
and wind. The Group employs 76,000 people in 70 countries, and had
orders of EUR 23.5 billion in 2007/08.

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" that
contain projections, estimates or assumptions about our capital
expenditures. In many cases you can identify forward-looking
statements by terminology such as "intend," "may," "plan," "will,"
"expect," and other similar words. However, the absence of these words
does not mean that the statements are not forward-looking.

Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or
implied by forward-looking statements as a result of many factors or
events, including, but not limited to, regulatory developments and
approvals, legal, governmental and bankruptcy proceedings, financial
market conditions, access to capital, changes in commodity prices and
interest rates, and other factors we discuss or refer to in the "Risk
Factors" section of our filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission.

SOURCE: Reliant Energy

Reliant Energy, Houston
Director, Media Relations
Pat Hammond, 713-497-7723
or
Vice President, Investor Relations
Dennis Barber, 713-497-3042

Copyright Business Wire 2008