Ideally we'd just nationalize them: state- or municipality-owned power companies in the US routinely provide cheaper and better service than their private counterparts[1].
I've seen that not working in Europe: they got defunded to oblivion. Now the situation is in one EU country, 25% of water that goes through the pipeline, gets leaked. Because the household utility prices were frozen (kept absurdly low) for almost 10 years, no investments could be made.
I'm really puzzled at this time, because I can clearly see huge issues in either wholly privately-owned and public utility companies. It's about time we figured this out, we sent men to the moon for god's sake!