Remote customers have to pay more to get connected to the grid in the first place, but the higher maintenance costs for low density grid service aren't passed along on an ongoing basis.
The problem is that electricity prices in California historically lumped a bunch of infrastructure costs into the per-unit costs for a kilowatt hour of electricity. This was an implicit subsidy for anyone whose costs to the electricity system came disproportionately more from infrastructure maintenance than from energy consumption. It has become a growing problem in recent years as rooftop solar has proliferated, since solar households are (mostly) still connected to and reliant on the grid but are consuming much less energy from the grid.
The most straightforward solution would be to split out energy consumption and infrastructure charges and bill each customer for their actual infrastructure needs and energy consumption. This is politically unpalatable because it would raise costs more than average for low-energy-consumption customers (typically lower income households).
The better solution that wouldn't hurt lower income households would be to change billing like proposed above but offer state financial assistance to low-income households in proportion to the old implied subsidies. This way the economic distortion would end but low-income groups wouldn't suffer. I don't know why California didn't do this.
The worse solution that California has selected is to charge households a fixed connection charge according to income rather than according to infrastructure costs. This maintains the economic distortions of the old billing system since it means that there is no incentive to avoid wasteful infrastructure. If you're affluent and you're going to be soaked on electricity service either way, you might as well live in a big sprawling rural property since you'll not get any economic benefit from living in more infrastructure-thrifty urban or suburban housing.
The problem is that electricity prices in California historically lumped a bunch of infrastructure costs into the per-unit costs for a kilowatt hour of electricity. This was an implicit subsidy for anyone whose costs to the electricity system came disproportionately more from infrastructure maintenance than from energy consumption. It has become a growing problem in recent years as rooftop solar has proliferated, since solar households are (mostly) still connected to and reliant on the grid but are consuming much less energy from the grid.
The most straightforward solution would be to split out energy consumption and infrastructure charges and bill each customer for their actual infrastructure needs and energy consumption. This is politically unpalatable because it would raise costs more than average for low-energy-consumption customers (typically lower income households).
The better solution that wouldn't hurt lower income households would be to change billing like proposed above but offer state financial assistance to low-income households in proportion to the old implied subsidies. This way the economic distortion would end but low-income groups wouldn't suffer. I don't know why California didn't do this.
The worse solution that California has selected is to charge households a fixed connection charge according to income rather than according to infrastructure costs. This maintains the economic distortions of the old billing system since it means that there is no incentive to avoid wasteful infrastructure. If you're affluent and you're going to be soaked on electricity service either way, you might as well live in a big sprawling rural property since you'll not get any economic benefit from living in more infrastructure-thrifty urban or suburban housing.