I live in one of the places with good power. Have lived in my present building for 20 years, only two power failures in that time, and of those happened because

I live in one of the places with good power. Have lived in my present building for 20 years, only two power failures in that time, and of those happened because unknown persons really wanted to cut power to my neighbour. The price for this reliability is said to be up to about ten times of what the Americans pay. I appreciate the reliability personally, but I imagine that if you went to your customers saying "this part of your power bill is going to increase by 1000%" some of them might scream at you. I've also done some contract work for a couple of power companies, and don't have the impression that they tried to maximise profit. Rather, they seemed to see themselves as safe, zero-risk, low-profit places. As someone who'd never make either large profits or losses. The teams I dealt with didn't seem like people who would face down screaming customers. Safe, low-risk, boring, staid, always profitable, never headline makers. Assuming that the Californians are like the teams I dealt with, I would tend to explain their present state with a reluctance to offend the customers.