Power Struggle: How Shareholder Primacy in the Electrical Utility Sector Is Holding Back an Affordable and Just Energy Transition

May 24, 2022

The production, distribution, and governance of electricity in our economy is undergoing profound change. Whether this moment of change leads us to a more affordable, resilient, clean, and democratic energy system or intensifies today’s costly, vulnerable, top-down, fossil fuel–driven energy sector depends on the rules put in place to shape utilities today.



Instead of reinvesting earnings into more efficient, zero-carbon energy systems for consumers and future generations, this brief details how US investor-owned utilities have instead distributed over $250 billion—or 86 percent of net earnings—to shareholders over the past decade, at tremendous cost to a just transition.

The power struggle between public and corporate power over the future of electricity requires state and federal regulators to better align electric utilities with the public interest, a just transition, and a zero-carbon economy.

In “Power Struggle: How Shareholder Primacy in the Electrical Utility Sector Is Holding Back an Affordable and Just Energy Transition,” Niko Lusiani offers a number of policy recommendations to head off creeping shareholder primacy in the electricity sector, including: 

  • Creating a ban or very low bright-line limits on share buybacks; 
  • Implementing an annual shareholder payout cap, prioritizing reinvestment in efficiency and resiliency;
  • Instituting a new set of binding fiduciary duties, toward alignment with the public interest; and
  • Establishing clear guardrails to protect against utility lobbying efforts currently undermining a just transition.

Read the rest of the “All Economic Policy Is Climate Policy” series.