Utilities aren’t like regular companies. Yes, they have stockholders, and they want to turn a profit. But their means of doing so are drastically different than a typical corporation: most utilities, for example, earn money for their shareholders by spending money. The more infrastructure (transmission lines, power plants, etc.) a utility builds, the more money its shareholders make.
The easiest way to understand the utility model is to think of a utility like a bank. The utility loans money to the public to pay for the power plants and other components of the electric grid, and in return for building and operating the grid, the utility gets to earn a rate of return on the capital expenditures it makes.
