It ran at 90% of capacity in 2008, according to the Energy Information Administration, and Central Vermont Public Service says it's the most reliable source of power the utility has access to.
The programs range from complex instructions for displaying pop-up windows to a 36-line memory-management utility from the open-source game Rooms of Doom that software writers love because it's more compact than the 72-line alternative.
At one time a person could throw a dart at a page of utility stocks and be pretty sure of coming up with a company that had a stable revenue source and a good dividend yield.