Dive Brief:

• Duke Energy plans to sell its stakes in 13 Midwest coal-, oil- and natural gas-fired power plants totaling about 6,600 MW.
• Income from the plants was too volatile and the generating units weren't “a good strategic fit,” according to Duke.
• The sale was triggered by a decision by Ohio regulators to reject a rate increase for the utility company while wholesale power prices have been falling.

Dive Insight:

Duke's decision is a sign of the times. More utility companies are exiting the unregulated markets in an effort to go back to basics.

Expect more power plants to be put up for sale (and retired). “We expect a lot of other publicly traded utilities will follow suit in the next 24 months,” Julien Dumoulin-Smith, a UBS AG utility analyst, told Bloomberg.