Utility UK
A utility company provides utilities to homes and businesses via connections to larger systems. These services include electricity, natural gas, drinking water, and sewage collection. Utilities can also include telecommunications, roads and highways, postal service, sanitation and public transport. Utility companies are usually regulated or government-owned. With environment change now a fact, it is important that we focus more and more on renewable energy sources within the provision of utilities.
The Utilities Act 2000 updated some of the requirements on the granting of energy supply licences and reformed the regulatory regime for electricity and downstream gas in the United Kingdom. Likewise, it formalised the merger of OFFER and OFGAS into a combined regulator, OFGEM, and amending the statutory duties of the regulator. OFGEM has an important part to play shaping the future of the gas and electricity industries in the United Kingdom - The Energy Act 2004 has tasked OFGEM to contribute to sustainable development. The Act also enabled the UK Government to introduce an ‘obligation’ on electricity suppliers in England and Wales to source a percentage of their electricity from renewable sources. Powers for a similar provision have been put in place in Scotland .