>I'd rather have poor people using electricity than rich corporations.

Deicing power plants and pipelines requires electricity. If electricity cost is $9000/MWh then paying that money is worth it since you unlock the ability to produce more electricity and sell the additional production capacity you brought online for $7000/MWh. Repeat this with multiple power plants and you are back to $100/MWh.

If you just hand it out to random people you might not have enough electricity to keep the electric grid alive.