Seeking fame and fortune in and outside Finland, energy powerhouse Fortum generates electric power across the region. In the Baltic Rim its power plants create electricity (more than 10,980 MW of generation capacity), and heat. Fortum distributes electricity to 1.6 million customers (primarily in Estonia, Finland, Norway, and Sweden). The company also has significant operations in a growth area, Russia, including 2,785 MW of power generation capacity. (Russia accounted for about 9% of Fortum's total revenues in 2009). Fortum has divested its oil and engineering assets in order to focus on its core power and heating businesses.

Veolia Water Central Limited provides water to more than 3.5 million customers. Veolia Water Central provides water services to a number of counties (including Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, and Surrey, as well as the London boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Enfield, Harrow, and Hillingdon). The company is a subsidiary of Veolia Environnement, a France-based utility and environmental services giant. Veolia Water Central traces its origins back some 130 years.

Show me the power. Cuivre River Electric Cooperative provides power to four eastern counties in the "Show Me" state: Lincoln, Pike, St. Charles, and Warren. The membership utility, which is one of Missouri's largest cooperatives with more than 58,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers, gets its wholesale power supply from the Associated Electric Cooperative and the Central Electric Power Cooperative. Cuivre River Propane, jointly owned and operated by Cuivre River Electric Cooperative and MFA Oil Company supplies propane to co-op members from four locations, Bowling Green, Elsberry, Troy, and Wright City.

Dee Valley Group, operating through its Dee Valley Water unit, supplies water to more than 106,000 households and 8,250 commercial, industrial, and business customers in North East Wales and Cheshire. Dee Valley Water, formed from the combination of Wrexham Water and Chester Waterworks, supplies water to an 831-sq.-km. area. Dee Valley Water exited its nonwater operations in 2002. The company has been investing in its mains and distribution system to preventage leakage, and in 2005 it completed a 15-year water main rehabilitation program. It also commissioned a water treatment works at Pendinas. Dee Valley Group was created in 1994 as the holding company for Wrexham Water. Axa Sun Life owns 35% of the company.

"Hey Culligan Man!" To be sure, the phrase made famous by an ad campaign still rings in the ears of Culligan International workers. Formerly a subsidiary of Veolia Environnement, Culligan produces filters for tap water, household water softeners, microfiltration products, desalination systems, and portable deionization services for commercial and industrial users. The franchised "Culligan Man" noted in the advertising phrase delivers bottled water and water systems to consumers and businesses through more than 800 Culligan company-owned and franchised dealers in more than 90 countries. Buyout firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice owns the company.

Bangor Hydro-Electric (BHE) has dropped its hydro, but the company still has plenty of electricity. As part of the restructuring of the electric utility industry in the state of Maine, BHE has shed its generating facilities, including its hydroelectric projects, to focus on distribution and transmission. The regulated utility serves 117,000 customers in six counties in southeastern Maine. The company is also a member of the New England Power Pool. Bangor Hydro-Electric is a subsidiary of Canada's Emera, the parent company of electric utility Nova Scotia Power.

Taiwan Power (Taipower) is looking to get by with a little help from its friends. With a generating capacity of more than 38,080 MW, the state-owned utility serves nearly 12 million industrial, commercial, and residential customers. Thermal sources (coal, oil, and liquefied natural gas) fuel most of Taipower's plants; nuclear energy and hydroelectric sources make up the balance. Unable to meet Taiwan's power needs on its own, the utility has opened its market to independent power producers, allowing companies to build power plants and sell to Taipower. Taipower has resumed construction on the nation's fourth nuclear plant. The Taiwan government has announced plans to privatize Taipower (it owned 97% in 2009).

Targa Resources Corp., through its general and limited partner interests in Targa Resources Partners LP, provides midstream natural gas and natural gas liquid (NGL) services in the United States. It engages in gathering, compressing, treating, processing, and selling natural gas; and storing, fractionating, treating, transporting, and selling NGLs and NGL products. The company owns and operates approximately 11,169 miles of natural gas pipelines and approximately 800 miles of NGL pipelines, with natural gas gathering systems covering approximately 13,500 square miles and 21 natural gas processing plants with access to natural gas supplies in the Permian Basin, the Fort Worth Basin, the onshore region of the Louisiana Gulf Coast, and the Gulf of Mexico. It sells its products to petrochemical manufacturers, refineries, multi-state retailers, and independent retailers. Targa Resources Corp. was founded in 2004 and is based in Houston, Texas.

Xcel Energy has accelerated its energy engine into utility markets across the US. The utility holding company distributes electricity to 3.4 million customers and natural gas to 1.9 million in eight states; Colorado and Minnesota account for the majority of its customers. Its regulated utilities -- Northern States Power, Public Service Company of Colorado, and Southwestern Public Service -- have more than 20,500 MW of primarily fossil-fueled generating capacity. Xcel also has 35,200 miles of natural gas transmission and distribution pipelines. Pushing green energy sources, in 2008 Xcel announced that it would develop solar-generated power plants in Colorado as part of its green energy initiative.

United Air Specialists has ESP, and the company knows just when to cause static. The company's industrial air pollution control unit makes electrostatic precipitators (ESP) that electrify airborne particles and remove them from the air. United Air Specialists also makes commercial air-cleaning systems, including kitchen emissions systems. In addition, the company makes electrostatic fluid control and high-precision spraying equipment. The company's products are used in offices, hospitals, bars, schools, and industrial settings. United Air Specialists, founded in 1966, is part of the industrial and environmental filtration business unit of manufacturing group CLARCOR.

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