Municipal electric utilities serve thousands of communities across the country. Public utility customers experience fewer and shorter outages, pay lower rates, and have more say than private utility customers. If the customers of an investor-owned utility are unhappy with its service, a local government can take over the utility and serve residents itself through a process called municipalization. Win or lose, municipalization fights can give communities greater voice and more leverage over their electric utility in vital areas like sustainability.

ILSR’s six part podcast series, called The Promise and Peril of Publicly-Owned Power, responds to an uptick of interest in city-owned electric utilities. The episodes explore the benefits of public ownership, how to successfully take over, the silver linings of failed municipalization campaigns, and limitations of the public power model.
Listen to the SeriesFeatured Resources
Spreading Like Wildfire: An Interest in Making Electric Power Public
How Investor-Owned Utilities Turn (Your) Money into Political Power
Recent Articles

A Public Utility for New York’s Hudson Valley – Episode 227 of Local Energy Rules
Rep. Sarahana Shrestha has a bill, The Hudson Valley Power Authority Act, that would take the privately-owned Central Hudson Gas & Electric public in order...

Public Power on the Ballot in Florida — Episode 221 of Local Energy Rules
The Florida Legislature removed local control of Gainesville’s century-old municipal utility, but Commissioner Bryan Eastman explains how the city plans to take it back.

Ann Arbor’s Public Pathway to Reliable Power — Episode 207 of Local Energy Rules
Gregory Woodring discusses the ways that investor-owned utility DTE Energy has failed Ann Arbor customers and how the city could take over and provide better...

A San Diego Solar Takeover — Episode 206 of Local Energy Rules
Dorrie Bruggemann and Bill Powers discuss how a publicly-owned San Diego electric utility would be more supportive of distributed solar, offer lower rates thanks to...
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