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The electric company isn't charging extra for maintaining the infrastructure and delivering the power; the structure of your bill simply exposes it to you. The utilities were required to unbundle their pricing during the 'deregulation' frenzy a few years ago (which they were strongly behind so they did this to themselves), and so now you see the costs as separate line items on your bill.
5 years ago I found a sweet deal on the power portion of my electric costs, but I had to lock into the price for 5 years. At the rate they were charging I said 'no problemo' and signed up. Recently that deal was done and I was once again on the market. Wait, did I say market? Basically there is no market. Everyone charges the same rate, unless they're shysters with short term 'teaser' rates and floating rates after that, in which case they're gouging you. All the folks offering straight up deals are within tenths of pennies of one another. Some market.
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