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.
Guaynabo (is a municipality in the northern part of Puerto Rico, located in the northern coast of the island, north of Aguas Buenas; south of Cataño; east of Bayamón; and west of San Juan. Guaynabo is spread over 9 wards and Guaynabo Pueblo . Guaynabo is considered, along with its neighbors - San Juan and the municipalities of Bayamón, Carolina, Cataño, Toa Alta, Canovanas, Caguas, Toa Baja, and Trujillo Alto - to be part of the Área Metropolitana of San Juan . It is also part of the larger San Juan-Caguas-Fajardo Combined Statistical Area. The municipio has a land area of 70.26 km² and a population of 100,053 as of the 2000 census.