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Electric Utility Ownership by NERC Region

Notes: The North American Electric Reliability Council's regional Electric Reliability Councils are ECAR-- East Central Area Reliability Coordination Agreement; SERC--Southeastern Electric Reliability Council; MAIN--Mid-Atlantic Interconnected Network; SPP--Southwest Power Pool; ERCOT--Electric Reliability Council of Texas; MAAC--Mid-Atlantic Area Council; MAPP (U.S.)--Mid-Continent Area Power Pool; WSCC (U.S.)--Western Systems Coordinating Council; NPCC (U.S.)--Northeast Power Coordinating Council; and ASCC--Alaska Systems Coordinating Council. The Florida Reliability Coordinating Council (FRCC) was informally organized in October 1996 and officially became a NERC region on January 1, 1997. However, data for the FRCC will not be available until 1998. In the interim, the data will continue to be included in SERC.

Source: North American Electric Reliability Council and the Energy Information Administration.

As of December 31, 1996, there were 3,195 electric utilities throughout the United States, but only approximately 700 of them operate facilities that generate power.
Many utilities are exclusively distribution utilities — that is, they purchase wholesale power from others to distribute it, over their own distribution lines, to the ultimate consumer.
Some electric utilities have service territories extending beyond a single county or parish. Others just serve a municipality or part of a county.
Many counties in the United States are served by more than a single utility, and some parts of the country have more than 10 electric utilities operating in a county.
An extensive system of high-voltage transmission lines is owned and operated by the Nation's larger utilities. This transmission network permits electricity trading between utilities. Without transmission facilities, electricity could not be moved from power plants to the thousands of distribution systems serving millions of consumers of electric power.

On to Wholesale Market
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