They frequently depend on venture-capital funds which are dwarfed by the cost of even a single utility-scale power plant.

ECONOMIST: The prospects

But what a university sees as a no-brainer cost reduction, a utility often sees as a threat to sales.

FORBES: The Most Efficient Power Plants

Jain: What we need in India -- and in other emerging markets -- is a low-cost access device which can make the Internet a mass-market service, a utility service.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Conversations: 'I Want to Make a Difference'

Since John is still doing his laundry during peak load hours, the utility is paying top dollar in infrastructure costs and high-cost backup power plants.

FORBES: How The Smart Grid Fell From Grace And What To Do About It

American Electric Power (AEP) chose to delay its plans to build a wind farm in Indiana when the heavily indebted utility found its cost of capital had soared because of turmoil in the corporate-bond market.

ECONOMIST: Corporate social responsibility

The Government has come under increasing pressure from trade unions and Labour backbenchers to help poorer families deal with the rising cost of energy via a one-off tax on the profits of utility companies.

BBC: Energy companies 'hike dividends'

To this has to be added the cost of treating health insurance like a utility: regulating prices and stopping insurers cherry-picking and lemon-dropping.

ECONOMIST: Health insurance