South West Water, one of the main subsidiaries of Pennon Group, provides water and wastewater services to 1.6 million people (more during the summer tourism season) in England's South West region. The company's service territory covers nearly 4,300 square miles and includes Devon, Cornwall, and parts of Dorset and Somerset. South West Water maintains more than 9,320 miles of water mains. Because 8 million tourists come to the region annually to swim at its numerous beaches, the utility is responsible for environmental cleanup in the region. It instituted a Clean Sweep program to improve the treatment of coastal sewage and meet European Union guidelines. The utility was privatized in 1989.

Otter Tail covers a swath of businesses, from electric services and food-ingredient processing to manufacturing equipment, plastics, and health services. Its electric utility and energy activities are subsidiaries of Otter Tail, and its subsidiary Varistar holds Otter Tail's other interests. The electric utility has been the company's core effort since Otter Tail's start in 1907; it keeps the lights on for 129,000-plus residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Minnesota and the Dakotas. Otter Tail also makes PVC pipes, wind towers, metal parts, and processes potato flakes, as well as offers diagnostic medical equipment, and construction and trucking services.

Cleco Corp. is an energy services company based in central Louisiana. We have been in business since 1934, and throughout our years of service, we have perfected the basics of a successful electric utility business: reasonable rates, reliable service and customer focus.Our two primary businesses are Cleco Power LLC, a regulated electric utility business serving approximately 277,000 customers in Louisiana, and Cleco Midstream Resources LLC, a wholesale energy business.Today, Cleco Power operates four power plants with 3,803 megawatts of *nameplate generating capacity and owns 2,532 megawatts of this capacity.Through Cleco Midstream Resources, our wholesale energy business, we operate one wholesale power plant with 775 megawatts of nameplate generating capacity.We use a mixture of western coal, petroleum coke (petcoke), lignite, oil, and natural gas to serve our customers. This diverse fuel mix helps Cleco deliver reliable, low-cost power to its customers. We also have access to purchased power when it's needed and when it's more cost-effective than our generation.

Portland General Electric (PGE) keeps many Birkenstock-shod feet warm: The company, formerly a subsidiary of Enron, generates, purchases, and distributes electricity to about 815,750 customers in Oregon. PGE's service territory covers 52 cities, including Portland and Salem. Its hydroelectric, coal-fired, and gas-fired plants had a generating capacity of more than 2,600 MW in 2009, and it purchased another 1,920 MW of generating capacity. PGE also markets wholesale electricity and natural gas to other utilities and marketers in the western US. In keeping with the "green" image of Portland residents, PGE leads the nation in residential customers who purchase power from renewable sources.

BlueStar Energy intends to burn bright in the firmament of independent electricity providers. Serving customers in the deregulated markets of Maryland, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC, the company offers variable- and fixed-rate and custom plans along with green energy to industrial, commercial, and residential customers. Its energy efficiency program examines customers' energy usage and offers services to decrease costs including reworking interior and exterior lighting, monitoring power use, rewiring fixtures, and performing exterior maintenance. BlueStar Energy spreads it power from offices in Chicago and Peoria, Illinois.

Horizon Wind Energy owns and operates more than 20 onshore wind farms across nine states that have a generating capacity of 2,800 MW. It has another 20,000 MW of wind projects in various stages of development around the country. Horizon sells its electricity wholesale as Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) to utility companies such as AmerenUE, Direct Energy, Great River, and the TVA. It has also developed and sold seven farms to Entergy, Florida Power & Light, and Puget Energy.

Pennichuck Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in the collection, storage, treatment, and distribution of potable water for domestic, industrial, commercial, and fire protection service in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The company also provides non-regulated water management services, including monitoring, maintenance, testing, and compliance reporting services for water systems of various towns, businesses, and residential communities. In addition, Pennichuck Corporation involves in real estate management and commercialization activities. The company was founded in 1852 and is headquartered in Merrimack, New Hampshire.

Yankee Gas Services does not ride a pony into town like a Yankee Doodle Dandy, but it does pipe a lot of natural gas to 71 central and southwest Connecticut towns and cities. With approximately 205,000 commercial, industrial, and residential customers, the company, a subsidiary of Yankee Energy System (which is itself a unit of Northeast Utilities), is the largest natural gas distributor in Connecticut. Northeast Utilities Service Company, also a subsidiary of Northeast Utilities, performs administrative and accounting duties for Yankee Gas Services.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) keeps the movie cameras running and the swimming pools full. The largest municipally owned utility in the US, LADWP provides electricity to more than 1.4 million residential and business customers and water to 640,000 customers. The company has power plant interests that give it more than 7,220 MW of generating capacity; it also buys and sells wholesale power. Most of the city's water supply is transported through two aqueduct systems from the Sierra Nevada Mountains; other water sources include wells and local groundwater basins. Because LADWP is city-owned, its retail monopoly status was unaffected by utility deregulation in California.

China Three Gorges Project Corporation (CTGPC) is building the world's largest hydropower project -- the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River. Located near the Xilingxia gorge, a 185-meter-high project dam controls a drainage area of 1 million square km and an average annual runoff of 451 billion cubic meters. Construction on the massive project broke ground in 1994 and is expected to formally wrap up in late 2008. Subsidiary China Yangtze Power was set up in 2002 to manage two power plants, Gezhouba and Three Gorges. In 2009, in a major cash infusion, this unit paid its parent for the remaining 18 generators at the Three Gorges project.

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