Its not that surprising when you account for the fact that utilities are government granted monopolies. In California, at least, the deal is that investors get

Its not that surprising when you account for the fact that utilities are government granted monopolies. In California, at least, the deal is that investors get to be the only game in town and in return they guarantee that the infrastructure will not fail. Depending on the size of the market, a power outage might cost the utility tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in fines, all but wiping out any profit for the year. AFAIK there are also some pretty hefty fines when the company fails to repair infrastructure fast enough, like after a car accident damages the power lines. With such crippling fines, its cheaper for utilities to build a huge natural gas peaker plant every year than to get penalized for failing to provide service.