Utilities’ high returns on equity outpace riskier stocks and cost the average customer $300 a year, national study finds.

The study: https://www.economicliberties.us/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/20250102-aelp-ror-v5.pdf

[Investor-Owned Utilities] are granted regional franchises not subject to competition under the rationale that they are “natural monopolies”: their service can be most efficiently provided by a single entity…As investor-owned businesses, IOUs seek to maximize their profits, which often runs headlong into regulators’ goal of achieving just and reasonable rates…Over the last three years, IOU residential electricity rates have increased 49% more than inflation. In contrast, their publicly owned counterparts have increased 44% less than inflation.