Effect of Inflation on Utilities Stocks

I’ve read in a number of places online that utilities stocks don’t do very well during periods of high inflation. The reasoning is that the increases in energy costs for these companies can’t be instantly passed down to consumers by instantly raising prices by a large amount because many of these companies are regulated by state and local governments that put a restriction on how quickly prices can be raised.

However, VPU (Vanguard utilities ETF) has outperformed the market by a large margin over the past year. I am completely confused by this. Can anyone enlighten me? Much appreciated!