For instnace; New England rates, are they destined to return ro previous highs? Looks like they capped with the same disastrous results as Ontario.

I really haven't the slightest clue...

Who would you place your money on in this sector?

Maybe TransAlta, pure generator, love the managment, nice yield but the P/E is rather on the high side. Other than that it's a really tough to pick a clear standout.

Am I seeing an illusion of fast growth in this traditional non-growth sector; or is it real? Looks real to me.

Bottom line, demand continues increasing and someone has to fill that demand. You'll never see another nuke plant in North America and are unlikely to see anymore James Bay scale hydro plants so that leaves fossil and alternative. Profits in fossil are of course principally driven by world coal/oil/gas prices. If those go up and electricity prices don't or can't because of caps then generators will lose, if input energy prices go down, kaching!!!

As far as Ontario goes, deregulation isn't dead but it is changed, it will probably never become a fully deregulated open market and there will be no more sales of generating capacity, but the government will seek to have the private sector invest in more generating capacity and will have to incent them to do so. I also expect they may undo some of the stupider of the Tory policies re: conservation incentives, alternative power/co-generation and off peak consumption/load balancing incentives....