Comment by iradik
11 hours ago
Does this really solve the problem? The article said that municipal bond costs are higher too. Buying up these companies will take a lot of capital. Cities will need to raise money somehow to pay for electrical grid investments and equipment. Even publicly owned companies work hire private ones which means needing to pay them.
Cutting out the investor owned utility and their return on equity is the goal. It is unlikely cost of capital to a coop or municipality in the bond market is so high compared to an investor owned corporate entity and their profit seeking that the math doesn’t pencil out.
Each entity is still borrowing, the investor owned utility demands a profit cut on top of the borrowing. That’s where you’re saving, the rake and skim. Eminent domain can be used if required to acquire infrastructure at fair market value, although I argue you want to push investor owned utilities into distress to buy at more favorable prices.
Electric utility death spiral: Revisited in the context of tariff design - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...