Public utilities provide electric, gas, water or telephone service to customers in a specified area. Utilities have a duty to provide safe and adequate service on reasonable terms to anyone who lives within the service area on without discriminating between customers. Because most utilities operate in near monopolistic conditions, they can be heavily regulated by local, state, and federal authorities. Generally, the local and state agencies are called Public Service Commissions (PSC) or Public Utility Commissions (PUC). Municipal Utilities and Rural Electric Cooperatives may be unregulated though.
Kualapuʻu is a census-designated place (CDP) on the island of Molokai in Maui County, Hawaiʻi, United States. The population was 1,936 at the 2000 census. Kualapuʻu can be literally translated as "hill overturned", but is thought to be a corruption of Puʻuʻuala: "sweet potato hill". The present settlement is a former pineapple cannery village once associated with Del Monte Foods.