SVP isn't weighed down with debt from {the Erin Brockavitch lawsuit, the San Bruno gas explosion, the Paradise fire} incidents (among other, less infamous ones).

More likely, though, is that smaller and newer utilities are likely to be more nimble than the big behemoth that has lots of tech debt and internal and external bureaucracy.

I also wonder how much of it just comes down to serving a small dense area vs a large varied one. If you can focus on the cheapest customers to serve and avoid the overhead from needing to cover a large area it should be at least a little cheaper.

As far as I can tell it's a cost-plus model. If PG&E wants to grow its revenue, it has to do something that costs more. They have a perverse incentive to make everything as expensive as possible.

https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/rate-plans/how-rates-w...