Electric Deregulation in my area?

Deregulation would still leave the company free to do the same thing. In fact, it may create a greater incentive to do so, as each company may even more ardently wish to have only customers who pay their bills on time.

Deregulation can be great or not so great. You just can not count on it to solve problems like this. We also can not assume that socialization of a utility will solve such problems. When first I went on vacation in Cuba, front page news, the management of the grid was running out of money because too many people were getting too far in arrears. It seems that everyone was being understanding or everyone else failing to pay on time, and over a few years of lax enforcement, over 80% of accounts were running in arrears. There was not enough money to pay to repair distribution systems.

I saw places where one home was supplying itsneighbourr with power paid for by nobody. The home providing the power was itself 6 months in arrears, approaching cut off. They were making a small payment every month to keep the cut-off date moving out.

My expectation is that fairly firm treatment is needed to keep the cash flowing.

with deregulation the power company could require a $1000 deposit. And, no, 1/2 of americans are not late on bills due.