Electricity capital and accumulation strategies in the U.S. electricity system

Abstract

The U.S. electricity sector has undergone a series of technological and political economic transformations between 1995 and 2020. Some, but not all, states have moved toward the provision of electricity through wholesale electricity markets, while others have remained traditionally regulated. In addition, electricity is increasingly generated from natural gas and renewable energy, and while total electricity consumption is stagnant in the United States, electric utility revenues have continued to grow. In combination with a growing emphasis on increasing shareholder value, the result of these changes has been the entry of a range of new electricity industry, finance, and regulatory actors, as well as a shift in the ways in which existing actors are seeking to realize surplus value. In light of these changes, in this paper, I outline the contemporary contours and contradictions of the U.S. electricity industry and detail five accumulation strategies being used in the industry. Building on scholarship in energy geography and geographies of finance, and based on the analysis of industry documents and financial analyst reports, I detail how the U.S. electricity has been reshaped by the introduction of new types of technologies, financial risk and investment opportunities, and changing modes of regulation. The resulting accumulation strategies are contested, partial, and incomplete, and are therefore a messy set of overlapping and at times contradictory strategies being deployed in an industry in flux.