December 8, 2004—Over the last five years, the number of regulated electric power companies in the United States is virtually unchanged, but the number of non-utility generators in North America has more than doubled according to the latest Platts UDI Directory of Electric Power Producers and Distributors (113th Ed.) released in November 2004.
The United States now has 3,317 regulated power companies, including 221 investor-owned utilities; 122 related holding, service, and operating companies; 1,858 municipal utilities; 892 electric cooperatives; and 224 government-owned utilities. In total, these companies have 570 gigawatts (GW) of installed generating capacity, 665,000 miles of high-voltage transmission line, and over 5.6-million miles of distribution line and cable. In 1999, UDI recorded 3,322 regulated electric companies in operation in the U.S. At that time, these companies had 730 GW installed.
There are now 684 non-utility electric power producers in the U.S. and Canada with a total of 428 GW of capacity, comprising 38% of North America’s 1,150 GW of installed capacity. This represents a quadrupling of the 111 GW that 275 North American non-utility generators reported for the 108th Edition of the Directory published in November 1999. The substantial increase includes the generating capacity sold by the regulated companies plus new- build plants.
Canada has 185 power companies, including 20 provincial systems and 22 investor-owned companies, which, between them have 99 GW installed—the bulk of the country’s generating capacity — along with 373,000 miles of high- voltage transmission line. In contrast to the U.S., Canada now has about half the 348 power companies it had in 1999, primarily due to large-scale consolidation of municipal utilities in Ontario.
The 1,700-page Directory of Electric Power Producers and Distributors has been in continuous publication since 1952, first as the McGraw-Hill Directory of Electric Utilities (1952-1966), then as the Electrical World Directory of Electric Utilities (1967-1994), and since then with the current title.
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