Public utility in the context of State ownership

Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. Public water supply systems are crucial to properly functioning societies. These systems are what supply drinking water to populations around the globe. Aspects of service quality include continuity of supply, water quality and water pressure. The institutional responsibility for water supply is arranged differently in different countries and regions (urban versus rural). It usually includes issues surrounding policy and regulation, service provision and standardization.

The cost of supplying water consists, to a very large extent, of fixed costs (capital costs and personnel costs) and only to a small extent of variable costs that depend on the amount of water consumed (mainly energy and chemicals). Almost all service providers in the world charge tariffs to recover part of their costs.

The water industry provides drinking water and wastewater services (including sewage treatment) to residential, commercial, and industrial sectors of the economy. Typically public utilities operate water supply networks. The water industry does not include manufacturers and suppliers of bottled water, which is part of the beverage production and belongs to the food sector.

The water industry includes water engineering, operations, water and wastewater plant construction, equipment supply and specialist water treatment chemicals, among others.

An electric utility, or a power company, is a company in the electric power industry (often a public utility) that engages in electricity generation and distribution of electricity for sale generally in a regulated market. Electric utilities are major providers of energy in most countries.

Electric utilities include investor owned, publicly owned, cooperatives, and nationalized entities. They may be engaged in all or only some aspects of the industry. Electricity markets are also considered electric utilities—these entities buy and sell electricity, acting as brokers, but usually do not own or operate generation, transmission, or distribution facilities. Utilities are regulated by local and national authorities.

A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructure costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors. Specifically, an industry is a natural monopoly if a single firm can supply the entire market at a lower long-run average cost than if multiple firms were to operate within it. In that case, it is very probable that a company (monopoly) or a minimal number of companies (oligopoly) will form, providing all or most of the relevant products and/or services. This frequently occurs in industries where capital costs predominate, creating large economies of scale in relation to the size of the market; examples include public utilities such as water services, electricity, telecommunications, mail, etc. Natural monopolies were recognized as potential sources of market failure as early as the 19th century; John Stuart Mill advocated government regulation to make them serve the public good.

Logistics is the part of supply chain management that deals with the efficient forward and reverse flow of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption according to the needs of customers, and a logistician is a professional working in the field of logistics management. Logistics management is a component that holds the supply chain together. The resources managed in logistics may include tangible goods such as materials, equipment, and supplies, as well as food and other edible items.Military logistics is concerned with maintaining army supply lines with food, armaments, ammunition, and spare parts, apart from the transportation of troops themselves. Meanwhile, civil logistics deals with acquiring, moving, and storing raw materials, semi-finished goods, and finished goods. For organisations that provide garbage collection, mail deliveries, public utilities, and after-sales services, logistical problems must be addressed.

Logistics deals with the movement of materials or products from one facility to another; it does not include material flow within production or assembly plants, such as production planning or single-machine scheduling.

A regulated market (RM) or coordinated market is an idealized system where the government or other organizations oversee the market, control the forces of supply and demand, and to some extent regulate the market actions. This can include tasks such as determining who is allowed to enter the market and what prices may be charged. The majority of financial markets such as stock exchanges are regulated, whereas over-the-counter markets are usually not at all or only moderately regulated.

One of the reasons for regulation can be the importance of the regulated activity – meaning the harm suffered should the industry fail would be so fatal that regulators (governments, legislators) cannot afford the risk. This includes fields like banking or financial services. Secondly, it is common for some markets to be regulated under the claim that they are natural monopolies, or that a monopoly would very likely appear should there be no regulation. It is crucial to prevent misuse of monopoly power, as this can lead to delivery of poor services with very high prices. This includes for example the telecommunications, water, gas, or electricity supply. Often, regulated markets are established during the partial privatisation of government controlled utility assets.

A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building-mounted and other decentralized solar power because they supply power at the utility level, rather than to a local user or users. Utility-scale solar is sometimes used to describe this type of project.

This approach differs from concentrated solar power, the other major large-scale solar generation technology, which uses heat to drive a variety of conventional generator systems. Both approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages, but to date, for a variety of reasons, photovoltaic technology has seen much wider use. As of 2019, about 97% of utility-scale solar power capacity was PV.

A water supply network or water supply system is a system of engineered hydrologic and hydraulic components that provide water supply. A water supply system typically includes the following:

1. A drainage basin (see water purification – sources of drinking water)
2. A raw water collection point (above or below ground) where the water accumulates, such as a lake, a river, or groundwater from an underground aquifer. Raw water may be transferred using uncovered ground-level aqueducts, covered tunnels, or underground pipes to water purification facilities..
3. Water purification facilities. Treated water is transferred using water pipes (usually underground).
4. Water storage facilities such as reservoirs, water tanks, or water towers. Smaller water systems may store the water in cisterns or pressure vessels. Tall buildings may also need to store water locally in pressure vessels in order for the water to reach the upper floors.
5. Additional water pressurizing components such as pumping stations may need to be situated at the outlet of underground or aboveground reservoirs or cisterns (if gravity flow is impractical).
6. A pipe network for distribution of water to consumers (which may be private houses or industrial, commercial, or institution establishments) and other usage points (such as fire hydrants)
7. Connections to the sewers (underground pipes, or aboveground ditches in some developing countries) are generally found downstream of the water consumers, but the sewer system is considered to be a separate system, rather than part of the water supply system.

Water supply networks are often run by public utilities of the water industry.

A transport network, or transportation network, is a network or graph in geographic space, describing an infrastructure that permits and constrains movement or flow.Examples include but are not limited to road networks, railways, air routes, pipelines, aqueducts, and power lines. The digital representation of these networks, and the methods for their analysis, is a core part of spatial analysis, geographic information systems, public utilities, and transport engineering. Network analysis is an application of the theories and algorithms of graph theory and is a form of proximity analysis.

Eminent domain, also known as land acquisition, compulsory purchase, resumption, resumption/compulsory acquisition, or expropriation, is the compulsory acquisition of private property for public use. It does not include the power to take and transfer ownership of private property from one property owner to another private property owner without a valid public purpose. This power can be legislatively delegated by the state to municipalities, government subdivisions, or even to private persons or corporations, when they are authorized to exercise the functions of public character.

The most common uses of property taken by eminent domain have been for roads, government buildings and public utilities. Many railroads were given the right of eminent domain to obtain land or easements in order to build and connect rail networks. In the mid-20th century, a new application of eminent domain was pioneered, in which the government could take the property and transfer it to a private third party for redevelopment. This was initially done only to a property that had been deemed "blighted" or a "development impediment", on the principle that such properties had a negative impact upon surrounding property owners, but was later expanded to allow the taking of any private property when the new third-party owner could develop the property in such a way as to bring in increased tax revenues to the government.

Fecal sludge management (FSM) (or faecal sludge management in British English) is the storage, collection, transport, treatment and safe end use or disposal of fecal sludge. Together, the collection, transport, treatment and end use of fecal sludge constitute the "value chain" or "service chain" of fecal sludge management. Fecal sludge is defined very broadly as what accumulates in onsite sanitation systems (e.g. pit latrines, septic tanks and container-based solutions) and specifically is not transported through a sewer. It is composed of human excreta, but also anything else that may go into an onsite containment technology, such as flushwater, cleansing materials (e.g. toilet paper and anal cleansing materials), menstrual hygiene products, grey water (i.e. bathing or kitchen water, including fats, oils and grease), and solid waste. Fecal sludge that is removed from septic tanks is called septage.

It is estimated that one-third of the world's population is served by onsite sanitation, and that in low-income countries less than 10% of urban areas are served by sewers. In low-income countries, the majority of fecal sludge is discharged untreated into the urban environment, placing a huge burden on public and environmental health. Hence, FSM plays a critical role in safely managed sanitation and the protection of public health. FSM services are provided by a range of formal and informal private sector services providers, local governments, water authorities, and public utilities. This can also result in unreliable services with relatively high costs at the household level.

Investor-owned utilities (IOUs) are private enterprises acting as public utilities.

Electric power is the rate of transfer of electrical energy within a circuit. Its SI unit is the watt, the general unit of power, defined as one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with other SI units: thousands, millions and billions of watts are called kilowatts, megawatts and gigawatts respectively.

In common parlance, electric power is the production and delivery of electrical energy, an essential public utility in much of the world. Electric power is usually produced by electric generators, but can also be supplied by sources such as electric batteries. It is usually supplied to businesses and homes (as domestic mains electricity) by the electric power industry through an electrical grid.

Suez S.A., known from 1997 to 2001 as Suez-Lyonnaise des eaux, was a leading French multinational corporation headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, with operations primarily in water, electricity and natural gas supply, and waste management. Suez was the result of a 1997 merger between the Compagnie de Suez and Lyonnaise des Eaux [fr], a leading French water company. In the early 2000s Suez also owned some media and telecommunications assets, but later divested them. According to the Masons Water Yearbook 2004/5, Suez served 117.4 million people around the world. The company conducted a merger of equals with fellow utility company Gaz de France on 22 July 2008 to form GDF Suez (called Engie since 2015). The water and waste assets of Suez were spun off into a separate publicly traded company, Suez Environnement.

Suez SA (formerly Suez Environnement) is a French-based utility company which operates largely in the water and waste management sectors. The company has its head office in La Défense, Paris. In 2015, all the group's brands became Suez.