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Energy & Renewables vocabulary · Energy Markets and Tariffs

Utility

Meaning in energy & renewables, with examples

/juːˈtɪləti/nounCore term

In energy & renewables, utility means: A company that supplies electricity, gas or water to the public and often owns or runs the network that delivers it. In energy texts it usually means a power company.

In Turkish: elektrik şirketi, enerji şirketi, kamu hizmeti şirketi

How it is used

Very common in American English and market reports: utility company, electric utility, utility customers. Utility-scale describes large projects that sell power to the grid rather than to a single building. Utility bills cover electricity, gas and water.

Example sentences

  1. The utility raised its residential rates by 8 percent this year.

  2. Most of our projects are utility-scale solar plants above 50 MW.

Common collocations

  • utility company
  • electric utility
  • utility-scale
  • utility bills
  • utility customers
  • tariffThe set of prices and rules that decides how much a customer pays for electricity or gas, for example per kWh, per month or by time of day.
  • grid operatorThe organisation that runs the power system in real time, balancing supply and demand and keeping voltage and frequency stable across the network.
  • distribution networkThe lower-voltage part of the power system that takes electricity from substations and delivers it through local lines and cables to homes and businesses.
  • solar farmA large ground-mounted installation of solar panels, usually covering many hectares, that produces electricity to sell to the grid rather than to power a single building.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Energy Markets and Tariffs

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