EIA: Investor-owned utilities served 72 percent of US electricity customers in 2017

Investor-owned utilities serve three out of every four utility customers in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) electric power sector survey data.

According to EIA, almost 3,000 electric distribution companies were operating in the United States in 2017. EIA groups utilities into three ownership types: investor-owned utilities, publicly run or managed utilities and cooperatives.

Investor-owned utilities make up a relatively small portion of utilities but are typically very large.

Investor-owned utilities (IOUs) are large electric distributors that issue stock owned by shareholders. They are most common in heavily populated areas on the East and West coasts. In 2017, 168 IOUs served an average of 654,600 electric customers. Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison Company, both of which are located in California, are the two largest IOUs with 5.48 million customers and 5.07 million customers, respectively.

Publicly owned utilities (POUs) include federal-, state-, and municipal-run utilities. Political subdivisions may also run POUs, also called public utility districts, which are utilities that residents vote into existence that operate independently of city or country government. The United States has 1,958 POUs which have an average of 12,100 electricity customers each. The largest POUs are the state-run Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), which has 1.47 million customers, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which is a municipal utility with 1.43 million customers.

Cooperatives are not-for-profit member-owned utilities. Co-ops are located in 47 states but are most common in the Midwest and Southeast.

The United States has 812 co-ops, which have an average of 24,500 electricity customers each. The largest cooperative is Pedernales Electric Co-op in Johnson City, Texas, with 333,809 customers, nearly 50 percent more customers than the second-largest co-op, Jackson Electric Member Corporation in Jefferson, Ga.