The utility company maintains all the electric wires and gas pipelines that ensure the safe and reliable flow of energy to your home or business. It will also provide you with a default energy plan if you don’t sign up with a competitive energy supplier.

Public utilities can be privately owned or publicly owned.

Publicly owned utilities include cooperative and municipal utilities. Retail competition and the ability to change your electric service is not available in most municipal and cooperative service territories. Municipal utilities may actually include territories outside of city limits or may not even serve the entire city. Cooperative utilities are owned by the customers they serve.

Private utilities, also called investor-owned utilities, are owned by investors