Who Pays When Utility Managements Screw Up?

Please excuse the infelicitous wording, but that is what this is all about. Not missteps or misjudgments but genuine, massive screw-ups. Policy makers in the United States worked out that problem over time, dealing with nuclear cost overruns and aborted projects. Three utilities went bankrupt (only one being investor-owned) when the financial burdens of nuclear projects far exceeded the resources of the utility. In most cases, regulatory agencies forced utility shareholders to bear some of the losses or imprudently incurred costs, customers paid…