This is exactly what is done in some countries, like Portugal.

The main difference is that a fully variable model subsidizes solar panel owners at the expense of the other clients, which makes solar panels a more attractive investment, whereas here the case for home solar is much weaker, particularly for low energy consumers.

In Norway we pay three different amounts, sometimes to two separate entities.

I pay the company that supplies the electricity per kilowatt-hour for the energy and the company that owns the local distribution network for the rental of the cables and a per kilowatt-hour fee for transporting the energy.

In my case it is just one company but the energy supplier could be separate from the infrastructure owner.

This kind of "free market" for electricity tends to drive up infrastructure costs needlessly (see Australia), while incentivizing bad behaviour by generation suppliers in the market (see Enron).

Public utilities generally provide a higher caliber of service at a lower price, with less administrative bloat.

Depends on the state, but in Vic the 'poles and wires' component, both in distribution (suburb) and transmission (pylons) costs are built into the fee that is charged for electricity supply (cost of connectivity) in a positive feedback loop: the more the companies invested, the more they could charge.

This was designed to avoid the 'run it into the ground's privatisation mentality, but it went the other way. Sadly, there was no price component for improving the network with new ideas, so it is still the same design as 100 years ago.

A system designed by accountants has done things accountants love, and nothing for electrical engineering or the citizens. Surprise.

The old SEC wasn't innovative or cheap, and neither is the privatised system. For incentives to be effective they have to be broken down to be smaller components rewarding specific conduct, and tweaked in response to system performance.

The ownership of utilities and the cost of their infrastructure investments has nothing to do with the 'freeness' of electricity markets.

The performance of utilities is more a function of regulatory power and willingness to regulate rather than utility ownership.

Please tell me it’s at least coordinated enough that the two entities send it together on one bill.

Usually it's one bill. But even if it weren't it's not a problem because the bill goes straight to my bank and I pay by direct debit. The bank notifies me in plenty of time by email. We don't use paper bills and invoices much in Norway any more. After the first one or two from a new supplier most people switch to email billing and direct debit (eFaktura and Avtalegiro).

I just get one bill, even though in my case it's two companies (because I shopped around)

It’s more important to subsidize new technologies. Now that solar panels have a foothold, the economic case has gotten dramatically stronger because they’re cheaper. Even if electric bills change, I thinks uptake would continue.

I live in Baltimore and have solar panels. I get a bill for around $15 IIRC even in months when I make more electricity than I use. I assume that’s an infrastructure fee.

A lot of the infrastructure is a variable cost. The system is built/upgraded to support a peak demand, and your contribution toward that peak is variable.

And when things fail, demand can often be blamed.

And if you lump everything into the variable fee, at least you have more incentive to conserve.

> A lot of the infrastructure is a variable cost. The system is built/upgraded to support a peak demand, and your contribution toward that peak is variable.

That can be solved by implementing time-of-use pricing and incorporating the "peak demand" infrastructure cost into the price. You would calculate how much infrastructure is needed to provide a "baseline" load (the trough on a demand graph), and divide that among the "fixed" portion. Perhaps you also add some sort of locality adjustment so rural/urban areas pay their "fair share". The rest of the infrastructure cost would be added the variable electricity price.

>And if you lump everything into the variable fee, at least you have more incentive to conserve.

That in itself isn't a bad thing. The problem is that with solar panels/wind power, you're also shifting the cost from people who can afford to install renewables (usually richer people with money to invest) to people who can't (usually poorer).

The problem is that electricity costs would spike to insane levels (as seen on wholesale spot markets) and consumers should have price certainty and confidence in supply, otherwise you get lots of costs in other parts of the economy. See e.g. California, where diesel gen sets are proliferating like crazy, or other markets where high CO2, high cost gas is the game theoretic optimum, eventually leading to an all-peak supply side.

In the UK a lot of the cost of distribution and transmission infrastructure is charged based on your consumption during the three highest demand half hour periods in the year (triad charge). This only applies to large users on half hourly billing, standard domestic consumers just get a distribution fee included in their bill.

And yet that doesn't make sense if those peaks occur when there is low system wide demand, except for sizing the transformer nearby.

Really should have a reward for users that can reduce their demand when asked, or use time of day pricing.

Ah, I didn't really explain that well. The three half hour periods are selected based on the system wide demand. You are then charged for your demand during those periods. So you pay a lot for using capacity when the network is strained. Also, for distribution charging (rather than transmission) there is a half hourly congestion charging mechanism. Every HH period gets put into a red, yellow, or green band and you pay more distribution charge during the red and yellow periods.

This is already the case in Switzerland

It already is in California as well

NYC has this. It’s a lot.