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.
Kinards (also Kinard) is an unincorporated community in Laurens and Newberry counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina. Although it is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP Code of 29355. The population of the ZCTA for ZIP Code 29355 was 801 at the 2000 census.