The debate that took place in a Washington, D.C., hearing room in June was so filled with energy-industry jargon that most people would not realize they were witnessing a battle over who could own and profit from power plants.
The same fight between utility companies and independent power producers is now happening in statehouses.
Utility companies see the current crisis in the electricity system, driven by rising demand from data centers and high pressure to curb rate increases, as an opportunity. But consumer advocates caution that utilities' efforts are more a cash grab than a solution.
"We need to plan for contingencies, we need flexibility, we need to plan for redundancies and have all the tools available to us to make sure that when customers turn the lights on, those lights come on," said Wendy Stark, executive vice president for utilities and chief legal officer for the utility PPL Corp. of Pennsylvania, at the June 4 hearing before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.