Becoming the Utility of the Future background image licensed by graphic stock; lightning image and transformer image licensed by ingram publishing Risks and Opportunities E ElEctricity bEcamE a housEhold nEcEssity with thE advent of broadcast radio in the 1920s. there were no nonelectric substitutes for the radio, it served a strong public interest for the government to be able to quickly send information to its citizens, and it was therefore desirable to electrify as many homes as possible. by the mid-1930s, electricity was considered a public utility. the Public utilities holding act of 1935, among other things, gave electric utilities (hereafter "utilities") the exclusive right to provide electricity to customers within a franchise service territory. in exchange for price regulation, By Richard E. Brown, C. Scott Wilson, and Hugo van Nispen Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2016.2573857 Date of publication: 17 August 2016 september/october 2016 1540-7977/16©2016IEEE ieee power & energy magazine 57