Largest utilities spent billions on stock buybacks, dividend payments to shareholders and executive salaries, analysis finds
Utilities cut service 1.5m times during the first 10 months of 2022, and an estimated 4.2m times nationwide in 30 states.Utilities cut service 1.5m times during the first 10 months of 2022, and an estimated 4.2m times nationwide in 30 states.Last modified on Mon 30 Jan 2023 05.03 GMT
Losing power has an often devastating impact on a household, including in terms of health and safety. “Shutoffs allow corporate utilities to punish customers’ economic precarity while guaranteeing record profits and massive payouts for themselves and their investors,” the authors wrote in the report. It was compiled with utility industry analyst Energy and Policy Institute and BailoutWatch.
Some of the companies that likely have the highest totals aren’t included. Between 2020-2021, Florida utilities shut off power 1.4m times, a “staggering” figure largely driven by NextEra’s Florida Light and Power division. But Florida no longer requires utilities to keep track of disconnections. “That was one of the data points that really hit home because that’s just such a small scrape of the amount of money that utilities are shelling out to shareholders that could really change lives in millions of households,” Goodson Bell said.
NextEra, which cut power most frequently before it was no longer required to report data, is much more generous to its executives and shareholders. The company paid the highest average pay-per-executive at $11.2m, and spent the second highest on dividends at $8.1bn.
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