this is what happens when you sell off critical infrastructure to private businesses.
Same with Water and the railways etc.

Companies don't run them for fun, they do it to extract profit, and they do it to the letter of what they are allowed to get away with, no more. Changes in circumstances that cannot be anticipated a decade in advance, like a global increase in energy due to wars, have no effect on what was signed up for and they get an unfiltered chance to go through the paperwork and find ways to extract more revenue as time goes on.

And short term profitability is put ahead of long term planning because what matters is the share price.
They have just built the first new reservoir for 75 years despite the fact that the population has consistently grown and climate change has been known about since I was a kid.
We have had to have hosepipe bans and "water shortages" for years until something gets built.

There is a whole industry that was developed from train companies employing teams of people trying to find a way to claim relief from rail track for something, anything really. And right off any fines they get for poor service against.

The future was sold to get short term boots in the economy from the 80's onward and now its coming home to roost, and the people that did it are not around to be held accountable.