The regulating bodies of those utilities work hard to create incentives for them to innovate. I spent four years of my career working on energy programs with ma

The regulating bodies of those utilities work hard to create incentives for them to innovate. I spent four years of my career working on energy programs with major utilities around the country in which they tried to incentive reductions in energy usage. Which is a curious statement: why would a electrical utility want people to use less electricity? The reason is because the regulatory agencies created incentives within the regulatory framework to encourage them to do it. Basically the regulators start with an outcome, bake that outcome into how utilities get paid, and then let the utility innovate to figure out how to do it. This led to meaningful reduction in energy usage across many markets.