The return of demand growth is something new in the electricity industry, especially as it is being driven by individual consumers whose load can exceed the peak demand of a small state, and it is giving new life to an old argument in state legislatures: restructuring the industry.

The R Street Institute has ranked the states on their embrace of policies related to competition, which includes retail power markets, RTO membership, smart metering policies and friendliness to distributed resources.

Ohio's governor signed into law a major reform of how the state regulates utilities, eliminating electric security plans that utilities have used to meet demand from non-shopping customers since a 2008 law authorized them.

FERC approved Vistra's purchase of Energy Harbor, which will allow Vistra to set up a new clean generation/retail firm while spinning off the combined firms' fossil plants into a separate subsidiary.