The first step to determining what electricity rate you’re on is to seek out your most up-to-date electricity bill. If you’re on electronic billing, you’ll be able to access your account online and download a recent copy; alternatively, a mailed paper bill will suffice. Using your electricity bill, you’ll be able to determine what electric rate you’re on during a few other ways. First, your bill will specifically state the name of the speed you’re on. You have the Power to Choose energy rates you want.

While useful, this might not tell you the specifics of what quantity you pay each hour for electricity; rather, you’d visit your utility’s website and hunt for that specific rate tariff. The second thanks to tell is to appear at the structure of how the prices are calculated. If you’re being charged different amounts for consumption during different time periods, that’s a sure sign you’re on a time-varying rate plan. If you’re being charged one rate for all electricity consumed, then you’re on a flat electricity rate plan. (You might even see multiple line items all charged at one rate, but that rate won’t change from hour to hour.) What different rate types mean, Generally speaking, there are two different kinds of electricity rates that residential customers may find themselves on: flat or time-varying.

Flat electricity rate plans Most electricity customers are on a flat electricity rate plan. this implies that there’s a set price you procure all the electricity you utilize per month, irrespective of when during the day, week, or month you employ it. as an example, on a flat rate, you will have an electricity rate of 15 cents per kilowatt-hour (c/kWh), a rate that won’t change from hour to hour or day today. irrespective of whether you’re watching TV within the morning, running your dishwasher overnight, or doing laundry on the weekends, the speed you buy using that electricity stays constant.

As a result, calculating your electricity bill monthly is comparatively straightforward: multiply the quantity of electricity you used that month by your electric rate. So, if you utilize 600 kWh in an exceedingly month on a flat rate of 15 c/kWh, your monthly electricity bill would be $90. In other words, your account is predicated on the degree of electricity you consume each month, meaning flat rates are often alternatively called “volumetric rates”. Time-varying electricity rate plans Alternatively, on a time-varying electricity rate, the speed you buy electricity varies throughout the day, week, month, or season. this suggests that you simply may pay one rate for electricity during the morning, one within the afternoon, and another one overnight.

Time-varying rates are designed in this manner to higher align electricity usage with the particular cost of manufacturing that electricity. In other words, on hot summer days when most are running their air conditioners at the identical time, it’s dearer to provide electricity than during the center of the night when most are asleep and really few appliances are pulling power from the grid, so utilities are also inclined to charge more at those times