Utility investments used to be pretty simple: power plants and electric wires. In a nutshell, that was the ratebase of a regulated utility.
Just as the industry is undergoing rapid changes, so are the investments utilities are making. Some, on the fuel side, have been less than successful: Florida Power & Light’s investment in natural gas development initially lost money for customers. Others have been blocked: Eversource Energy and National Grid abandoned Spectra Energy’s proposed Northeast Access pipeline after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled utilities could not charge customers to develop the line.
