[maxerickson]

The area I live in has utilities that service the small town population centers and a utility that services most of the outlying rural area. The rural operator is expensive, but not unaffordable.

Density including the towns is about 3.2 people per square km.

[rsynnott]

Who paid for the infra, and how old is it? If it was inherited from a prior larger utility, this is the sort of thing you can get away with, for a while, until it needs serious maintenance. But ultimately spreading the true lifetime cost of electrical infrastructure over that sort of population density without subsidy is going to lead to absurdly high prices.

[maxerickson]

It formed from smaller utilities ~1950. We have harsh winters and some small thunderstorms, but that's about it for weather.

Looks like people end up paying close to $0.30 per kwh. There's probably some cross subsidies coming from the state, I don't know.

[rsynnott]

Yeah, I’d be _amazed_ if that isn’t subsidised in some way, whether via direct subsidy or risk equalisation fees from bigger utilities.