What time of day do you use the most electricity? Have you ever stopped to consider it?
If you’re like most Americans, the answer is ‘no.’ Electricity, for the most part, is always there whenever you want to flip the switch. ‘How much’ you consume may cross your mind—especially when you open your utility bill—but ‘when?’ probably doesn’t happen as often.
For Santee Cooper customers, both the time of day and the quantity are about to be equally as important. Electric bills rendered on or after April 1, 2025 will have:
- A decreased per-kWh charge for both summer and non-summer months
- An increased customer base charge
- A new demand charge on energy consumption during peak time periods
These ‘peak’ periods are hours when there is a high local demand for electricity (3pm-6pm April-October and 6am-9am November-March). The new ‘demand charge’ will be applied to the hour with the highest amount of consumption during the peak hours for each month.
| Residential General Service | Current | New (April 2025) |
| Customer charge ($/month) | $19.50 | $20.00 |
| Demand Charge ($/kW) | N/A | $8.00 |
| Summer Energy Charge ($/kWh) | $0.1197 | $0.0792 |
| Non-Summer Energy Charge ($/kWh) | $0.0997 |
This Residential General Service (RG) is still separate from their Residential Time-of-Use (RT) rate, though the RT rate will also be seeing some changes.
Electric bills on the RT rate rendered on or after April 1, 2025 will see:
- A decreased on-peak per-kWh charge for summer months
- An increased on-peak per-kWh charge for non-summer months
- An increased off-peak per-kWh charge
- A decreased customer base charge
| Residential Time-of-Use | Current | New (April 2025) |
| Customer charge ($/month) | $28.00 | $20.00 |
| On-Peak Summer Energy Charge ($/kWh) | $0.3438 | $0.3380 |
| On-Peak Non-Summer Energy Charge ($/kWh) | $0.3094 | |
| Off-Peak Energy Charge ($/kWh) | $0.0613 | $0.0792 |
Is there a better option?
Well, on either rate, your goal will need to be to minimize your electrical consumption during those peak hours. But, as those are the timeframes when you’re probably coming home or getting ready for the day, that could prove to be somewhat difficult.
Instead of adjusting your lifestyle according to the rate structure, what if you were able to maintain your current lifestyle and simply pick and choose when to consume energy from the grid?
To do this, you’d need to be able to generate and store power for when you don’t want to pull from the grid (like during peak hours), if you want to pull from the grid at all. This is where solar panels and one or more batteries come in.
With a battery-integrated solar solution, you can automate:
- When to pull power from the battery and when to pull it from the grid (if you even want to)
- When to export to the grid if your battery is full and you’re still producing
- What to back-up in the case of a grid outage (per breaker and sometimes even per outlet)
- When to prepare for an upcoming storm and conserve your reserves
With a battery, you can configure your home to not draw power from the grid during peak hours, regardless of whether you’re on the RG or RT rate, saving yourself from any surcharges.
To learn more about battery storage, please visit our battery page or give us a call at (910) 409-5533. We’re happy to answer any questions!
