Scottish and Southern can speak with a Scottish burr or a southern English clip. The integrated company is one of the UK's top energy firms, distributing power and gas to 9.2 million customers through subsidiaries Southern Electric, Scottish Hydro Electric, SWALEC, and Atlantic Electric and Gas. Scottish and Southern's regulated utility assets include 79,300 miles of power transmission and distribution lines that serve 3.5 million end-users. Scottish and Southern has 11,300 MW of generating capacity. It also distributes gas to 5.7 million customers. Other operations include gas exploration, energy trading, wind farms, electrical and environmental contracting, gas storage, and retail appliance sales.

Pennon Group Plc South West Water subsidiary provides water and wastewater services to more than 1.6 million people (more during the summer tourism season) in England's South West region, including Devon, Cornwall, and parts of Dorset and Somerset. South West Water's Echo South West unit contracts to run customer service operations for utilities. Pennon subsidiary Viridor Waste -- one of the largest waste management businesses in the UK -- offers solid waste collection, landfill disposal, and recycling and other services.

Energy Future Holdings (formerly TXU) has seen the future and it works -- powered by electricity. The company is the largest nonregulated retail electric provider in Texas (TXU Energy), with 2.1 million customers, and through its Luminant unit it has a generating capacity of more than 15,510 MW from its interests in nuclear and fossil-fueled power plants in the state. Energy Future Holdings has regulated power transmission and distribution operations through 80%-owned Oncor Electric Delivery. Oncor operates the largest regulated distribution and transmission system in Texas, providing power to more than 3.1 million electric delivery points over more than 117,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines.

China Hydroelectric Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in the acquisition, ownership, development, and operation of hydroelectric power projects in the People's Republic of China. The company sells electricity to the power grids. It owns 12 operating hydroelectric power projects, as well as has a controlling interest in 1 operating hydroelectric power project in the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian, Yunnan, and Sichuan. As of December 31, 2009, the company has an installed capacity of 376.6 MW. China Hydroelectric Corporation was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People's Republic of China.

Thermal Energy International ledgers are in the black. The company focuses on providing air pollution control, renewable energy, and waste heat recovery and other energy conservation products, primarily under the Flu-Ace and Dry-Rex names. It also offers complementary engineering services. Thermal Energy International is also developing a product that targets ozone generation, THERMALOZOMAX. Customers include auto manufacturers; coal-fired utilities; food makers; hospitals; primary metal, pulp and paper processors; and sewage-treatment facilities.

ALLETE provides light to the northern climes. Most of its business is classified within its regulated operations, which include electric, gas, and water utilities located in northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. Those operations are conducted through subsidiaries Minnesota Power (about 145,000 customers) and Superior Water, Light and Power (about 35,000 customers for its electric, gas, and water utilities). ALLETE's other segment includes coal mining operations, emerging technologies related to electric utilities, and a real estate business (large land tracts in Florida). Subsidiary BNI Coal operates a mine in North Dakota that supplies, primarily, two generating co-ops, Minnkota Power and Square Butte.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association supplies wholesale electricity to 44 rural distribution utilities that serve about 1.5 million customers (more than 599,300 meters) in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming (New Mexico was a late addition to the association's service region). The member-owned cooperative has a generating capacity of 3,840 MW from its interests primarily in fossil-fueled power plants, and it operates 5,270 miles of transmission lines. Tri-State Generation and Transmission also purchases power and sells its excess supply to other utilities.

Veolia Water Central Limited provides water to more than 3.5 million customers. Veolia Water Central provides water services to a number of counties (including Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, and Surrey, as well as the London boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Enfield, Harrow, and Hillingdon). The company is a subsidiary of Veolia Environnement, a France-based utility and environmental services giant. Veolia Water Central traces its origins back some 130 years.

Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) is all about is the company, with offices in the US and UK, uses a proprietary system called PowerBouy to generate electricity using the mechanical energy produced when offshore waves move the anchored buoys up and down. OPT offers a buoy system that connects to power grids as well as an autonomous one that can be used in remote locations and for tsunami monitoring, oceanographic data collection, and offshore aquaculture. Customers include the US Navy, Spanish power producer Iberdrola, and Spanish energy firm TOTAL. It has a contract with Lockheed Martin to build a large power generation system off the west coast of the US.

Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative's mission is similar to the late Lady Bird Johnson's quest to spread wildflower seeds along Texas' highways -- the cooperative spreads currents of electricity among rural central Texas dwellers. One of the largest power distribution cooperatives in the state, Bluebonnet Electric serves almost 80,000 customers in 14 counties. The member-owned company, which was formed in 1939, operates approximately 11,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines, and 19 substations. It purchases its wholesale power supply at 21 Lower Colorado River Authority-owned substations.

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