The Board of Public Utilities of Kansas City, Kansas (known as the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities) will help light the way. The utility provides electric transmission and distribution services to approximately 65,000 customers and water distribution services to 51,000 customers in the Kansas City metropolitan area (in Wyandotte and Johnson counties). The Kansas City Board of Public Utilities also has interests in coal, gas, and oil-fired power generation facilities. The utility is owned by the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City.

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.

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.

Shikoku Electric Power, like the island it serves, is making bridges to new areas. One of 10 regional electric utilities licensed by the Japanese government to generate, transmit, and distribute power, Shikoku (known as Yonden in Japan) provides electricity to more than 4 million people in the four prefectures of Shikoku. The company has a generating capacity of more than 6,660 MW, primarily from nuclear and fossil-fueled plants; however, Shikoku is converting some of its oil-fueled plants to liquefied natural gas. Shikoku has expanded beyond its power utility business into activities such as Internet access, cable TV, remote monitoring and control systems, and rest homes for the elderly.

NOVEC is no novice when it comes to electricity distribution. Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC) is a member-owned utility that serves more than 130,000 residential, commercial, industrial, and government customers in northern Virginia. NOVEC receives its power supply primarily from generation and transmission utility Old Dominion Electric Cooperative. The company also markets natural gas and long-distance phone services to retail customers in Virginia and Maryland through its NOVEC Energy Solutions unit. Subsidiary NOVEC Solutions sells energy appliances. NOVEC was formed in 1983 through the merger of Prince William Electric Cooperative and Tri-County Electric Cooperative.

Constellation Energy Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, supplies energy products and services in North America. The company operates in three segments: Merchant Energy, Regulated Electric, and Regulated Gas. The Merchant Energy segment owns, operates, and maintains fossil, nuclear, and renewable generating facilities, and holds interests in nuclear generating facilities, qualifying facilities, and power projects. It also provides operation and maintenance services, including testing and start-up, to owners of electric generating facilities. In addition, this segment offers products and services to meet the energy requirements of wholesale and retail customers, including distribution utilities, cooperatives, aggregators, and commercial, industrial, and governmental customers. As of December 31, 2009, it had a total generation capacity of 7,118 megawatts. The Regulated Electric segment purchases, transmits, distributes, and sells electricity in central Maryland. It maintained approximately 240 substations, 1,300 circuit miles of transmission lines, and 24,500 circuit miles of distribution lines. The Regulated Gas segment purchases, transports, and sells natural gas in central Maryland. Constellation Energy Group also designs, constructs, and operates renewable energy, heating, cooling, and cogeneration facilities; offers energy performance contracting and energy efficiency engineering services; provides home improvements, service electric and gas appliances, service heating, air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, and indoor air quality systems, as well as offers natural gas marketing to residential customers in central Maryland; and develops and deploys new nuclear plants in North America through its joint venture. The company was founded in 1906 and is based in Baltimore, Maryland.

San Antonio Water System provides water and wastewater services to 344,200 customers, or about 1 million people, in the San Antonio metropolitan area (including most of the city of San Antonio, several suburban municipalities, and adjacent parts of Bexar County). The utility is owned by the City of San Antonio. SAWS was formed in 1992 through a merger of three entities: the City Water Board, the City Wastewater Department, and the Alamo Water Conservation and Reuse District.

Guangzhou Development Industry helps keep the lights on in China's Pearl River Delta. Established in 1997, the company is the largest power producer in Guangzhou province, with stake in about 10 coal-fired power plants with 2,100 MW of generating capacity. Guangzhou's energy logistics division operates an 80,000-ton deep-water coal-loading terminal and a 340,000-ton coal storage field. Nansha Oil Terminal, its joint venture with BP, has expanded Guangzhou's oil products distribution services throughout the region. The company is also a shareholder in Guangzhou Northern No. 2 Ring Expressway, a key toll road operating in the Pearl River Delta

Coast Electric Power Association when it comes to providing residents in three southern Mississippi counties with electricity. The utility uses a 6,400-mile distribution network to serve its more than 76,000 members (the great majority or which are residential customers) in Hancock, Pearl River, and Harrison counties. Coast offers electronic fund transfer and average monthly payment plans and rebates on energy efficient home improvements. The utility's power is generated by South Mississippi Electric Power, an association of Coast and 10 other cooperatives. It partners with Touchstone Energy Cooperatives.

The dryly named electric utility Electric Power Development Co. has a much more fun nickname -- J-POWER. With a generating capacity of 16,380 MW, the company supplies power used all over Japan. It has 67 hydroelectric plants, as well as some thermal and geothermal plants, and owns a transmission network that covers 2,400 km. J-POWER acts as a wholesale electric utility, selling to other electric power companies. Established by the Japanese government in 1952, J-POWER went through the privatization process, finally achieving full privatization and trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2004. The company is also sometimes referred to as EPDC.

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