Local Electric Utility Companies

Electric companies that own the system of poles, wires, conduits or other fixtures along public highways or streets that is necessary to deliver purchased electricity to a retail consumer's home or business. Included are investor-owned electric utilities, municipal and state utilities, federal electric utilities, and rural electric cooperatives (member-owned electric utility companies that may be engaged in the generation, wholesale purchasing, transmission, and/or distribution of electric power to serve the demands of their members on a nonprofit basis). In areas where deregulation has occurred and unbundled electric service is available, local utility companies continue to provide electricity distribution services for customers who elect to purchase their electricity from an alternative supplier, but will provide the full package of bundled electric services for customers who do not choose direct access via such a supplier. They are responsible for processing connection orders; installing, maintaining and repairing meters and other necessary equipment; and accepting and responding to reports of downed or arcing power lines, transformers that have been hit by lightning or otherwise affected by bad weather or other problems which constitute a hazard or threaten to interrupt service.