STP Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC) is pulling out all the stops to make sure that the lights burn brightly in the Lone Star State. The company manages the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station on a 12,220-acre site near Bay City, Texas. The nuclear power plant's two reactors, which went into operation in 1988 and in 1989, produce about 2,700 MW of electricity and serve 2 million homes in Texas. The company is jointly owned by NRG Energy (44%), CPS Energy (40%), and Austin Energy (16%). STPNOC accounts for about 7.5% of the power consumed in Texas.

Puget Energy is one of Washington State's largest utilities. Its electricity supply and transmission business, Puget Sound Energy, provides electricity to more than 1 million customers and natural gas to about 749,000 customers in western Washington. The utility owns fossil-fueled and hydroelectric plants as well as wind farms with a cumulative total of about 5,050 MW of capacity. In 2009, Puget Holdings LLC, a consortium led by Australian bank unit Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, acquired Puget Energy for $7.4 billion. The deal strengthens Puget Energy's access to cash to pay down debt and for future growth.

Società Azionaria per la Condotta di Acque Potabili provides non-potent potables for Italian citizens and industrial plants. Acque Potabili provides water services to more than 100 municipalities in the country, which have more than 800,000 residents combined; its water distributors include Acquedotto Monferrato and Acquedotto di Savona. Italgas, which is controlled by energy conglomerate Eni, owned a 67% stake in Acque Potabili, but has since sold it to Azienda Mediterranea Gas e Acqua (AMGA) and Società Metropolitana Acque Torino (SMAT). The company's other major shareholders include Vivendi (14%) and ACEA (14%).

Tohoku Electric Power Company, Inc. (Tohoku Electric Power) serves nearly five million residences and one million commercial and industrial customers in the Tohoku region, which comprises the seven northernmost prefectures of Japan's main island of Honshu. The region contains 20% of Japan's land and 10% of its population, but accounts for only 6% of its GNP. With its mountainous landscape and heavy winter snow, Tohoku has lagged behind the rest of Japan in terms of industrial development. The region is still largely rural and is known as Japan's furusato or country home. However, the city of Sendai in Miyagi prefecture has boomed in recent years to rival the southern Japanese centers. Tohoku's climate and the inaccessibility of many parts of the region has presented Tohoku Electric Power with special problems.

Trans-Elect has elected itself as a cross-border power company. The independent transmission company owns and operates about 12,600 miles of high-voltage power lines in portions of Canada and the US. The company acts as a wholesale provider of electricity to distribution companies. It operates the former transmission assets of of US utility Consumers Energy; it is also part of an international consortium that operates the former transmission assets of Canadian power distributor TransAlta. The acquisitions were the first of their kind in the deregulating North American electricity market. Trans-Elect is also involved in several expansion projects in congested areas of the US grid.

Kenergy kens energy, as the Scots might say. Electric distribution cooperative Kenergy serves about 55,000 customers in 14 counties (Breckinridge, Caldwell, Crittenden, Daviess, Hancock, Henderson, Hopkins, Livingston, Lyon, McLean, Muhlenberg, Ohio, Union and Webster) in Western Kentucky. Kenergy serves its customer base of households, commercial enterprises, and industries via more than 6,700 miles of power lines. The customer-owned company is part of Touchstone Energy Cooperatives, a national alliance of more than 600 local, consumer-owned electric utility cooperatives.

Allegheny Energy, Inc. owns and operates electric generation facilities, and delivers electric services to customers in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia. The company owns or contractually controls coal-, gas-, and oil-fired generation facilities, as well as hydro generation facilities. It operates in two segments, The Merchant Generation and The Regulated Operations. The Merchant Generation segment owns, operates, and manages electric generation facilities, as well as purchases and sells energy and energy-related commodities. This segment markets its electric generation capacity to various customers and markets, including certain of its affiliates, as well as uses both derivative and nonderivative contracts to manage its portfolio of contracts. As of December 31, 2009, it owned or contractually controlled 7,015 megawatts of generation capacity. The Regulated Operations segment operates electric public utility systems that include electricity generation, transmission, and distribution facilities. As of December 31, 2009, it owned or contractually controlled 2,741 megawatts of generation capacity. This segment served approximately 383,600 customers in northern West Virginia; approximately 483,400 customers in portions of West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia; approximately 102,000 customers in northern Virginia; and approximately 714,900 customers in southwestern, south-central, and northern Pennsylvania. The company is headquartered in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

SCANA is cooking with (natural) gas and electricity all over South and North Carolina, and Georgia. The holding company serves 659,000 electricity customers and more than 1 million gas customers in the neighboring states through utilities South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G), Public Service Company of North Carolina, and SCANA Energy (in Georgia). SCANA has an electric generating capacity of about 4,900 MW, derived from fossil-fueled power plants and hydroelectric and nuclear generation facilities. Unregulated operations include retail and wholesale energy marketing and trading, gas transportation, power plant management, fiber-optic telecommunications services, and appliance and HVAC maintenance.

Rayburn Country Electric Cooperative (Rayburn Electric) operates in the old stomping grounds of the legendary Texas politician and former speaker of the US House of Representatives. Rayburn Electric is a power generation and transmission organization that supplies wholesale power to five rural distribution cooperatives operating in 16 counties in north central and northeastern Texas. The five distribution cooperatives (Fannin County Electric Coop, FEC Electric Coop, Grayson-Collin Electric Coop, Lamar County Electric Coop, and Trinity Valley Electric Coop) collectively own the company. In 2010 it acquired a 25% stake in a Texas power plant from Calpine for $215 million.

Westar Energy wished upon a star, and the answer was -- "focus on power utility resources." Westar Energy has a generating capacity of more than 7,100 MW (mostly from fossil-fueled facilities) and serves about 685,000 electricity customers in Kansas through its utility subsidiaries. Westar Energy supplies power to 368,000 retail customers in central and northeast Kansas, and subsidiary Kansas Gas and Electric (KGE) supplies power to 317,000 retail customers in south-central and southeastern Kansas. The company operates 34,200 miles of transmission and distribution lines. It supplies wholesale electric power to more than 30 cities in Kansas and four electric cooperatives that serve rural areas.

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