Japan's Power Players Are Multiplying

For decades in Japan, the world’s fourth-largest electricity market, just 10 utilities met the country’s power demand. Today these so-called vertically integrated regional utilities — each one owns its own construction firms and even equipment manufacturers — face significant and growing competition.

A bit of context: Power demand from Japan’s 10 big utilities peaked a decade ago, as it did in the U.S. and many other developed markets. Today’s demand is down 15 percent from 2007.