A privately-held company, government agency, publicly-owned body or other entity that meets three specific criteria. It must own and/or operate facilities for provision of a service directly related to electric energy provision, it must sell electrical energy directly to end-use customers, and it must have the exclusive right to provide that service within a given area.

Prior to deregulation, electric utilities were defined as providers of most or all electrical services, including generation, transmission and distribution, billing, maintenance and ancillary services. Today an electric utility could mean an entity that provides just one of these services.

Utilities are service providers, but not all service providers are utilities. What distinguishes a utility is the exclusive rights it has to its territory, the fact that it provides electricity directly to the customer whether it offers any other services or not, and the degree of regulation under which it operates.

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