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.
As of September 2024, Horry Electric Cooperative members have new rate structures that are dependent on the time of day that the electricity was used. During ‘peak hours,’ or when there is the highest demand on the grid, energy is charged at a higher rate (3pm-6pm April-October and 6am-9am November-March).
With the Advanced Pay option, customers prepay for their electricity when they want and how they want. Starting with a $50 credit balance (on top of the $35 initial fee), customers are charged daily for their previous day’s energy consumption. As long as their is a positive balance in their account, customers keep their lights on and can pay whenever works best for them.
With the Post-Pay option (or with solar panels interconnected), customers receive a bill at the end of the month for their energy consumption.
The main difference between the two structures’ rates is in how consumption during “on-peak” hours is charged. With Advanced Pay, this is charged at a flat rate of $0.498/kWh–a little over x7 the cost of off-peak consumption. With both Post-Pay and solar options, it’s a little more complicated. Within a given pay period, the single peak hour with the greatest amount of consumption will be charged at $12.00/kW.
|
Residential Service |
Advanced Pay |
Post-Pay or With Solar |
|
Account Charge ($/day) |
$0.95 |
$0.95 |
|
Off-Peak Energy Charge ($/kWh) |
$0.069 |
$0.069 |
|
On-Peak Energy Charge ($/kWh) |
$0.498 |
n/a |
|
Peak Charge ($/kW) |
n/a |
$12.00 |
How to Make Time-of-Use Work in Your Favor
On a time-of-use rate structure, regardless of your utility, the key is to limit your energy consumption during peak hours. As these timeframes are the most popular times for households to consume energy, it may prove to be difficult to adjust.
Instead, consider how a home battery could bridge the gap. Rather than 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, 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!
