Maybe I'm stating the obvious here, but "inserting a king" is absolutely an act of deregulation in this context. Because earlier there would be only one supplier of electricity (the government) but now anyone would be able to sell electricity for a price that they see fit.

Now, socialists claim that since the government is not profit driven, it would keep the prices low. On the other hand, capitalists say that even if the supplier seeks profit, there would be competition which would lead to innovation, better service, and lower prices. Of course, pretty much none of our systems are fully on one side or the other which complicates things. For example, telcos did not build the entire internet infrastructure out of their pocket, they received significant amount of government funding.