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.
Elwood City is a borough in Beaver and Lawrence counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Elwood City is 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Pittsburgh and some 8 miles (13 km) south by southeast of New Castle. In the past, Ellwood City sustained many light industries such as steel-tube mills, steel-car works, building-stone and limestone quarries, foundries and machine shops, coal-mining, etc. In 1910, 2,243 people lived in Elwood City, 3,902 lived there in 1910, and 12,329 lived there in 1940. The population was 8,688 at the 2000 census.