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.
Soldiers Grove is a village located alongside the Kickapoo River in Crawford County, Wisconsin, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the village population was 653. Billing itself as "America's First Solar Village," Soldiers Grove was the first community in the United States to mandate the use of solar heating in commercial structures.