A plain-English guide to how TOU electricity pricing works, how it compares to the standard flat rate, and how to know if it's right for your household.
With a standard flat rate, you pay the same price per kilowatt-hour (kWh) no matter when you use electricity — 3 AM or 5 PM, the price is identical. It's simple and predictable.
A Time-of-Use (TOU) rate works differently. The price per kWh varies depending on what time it is. During a short "on-peak" window each day, electricity costs more. During all other hours — "off-peak" — it costs significantly less.
The idea is straightforward: if most of your electricity use happens outside the on-peak window, you pay a lower blended rate than the flat rate. If a lot of your use falls inside the on-peak window, you may pay more.
Notice that the off-peak rate (8¢) is well below the flat rate (13¢). That gap is where the savings come from — if you use most of your energy off-peak, you're paying 8¢ for hours that would have cost you 13¢ on the flat rate.
Wake Electric uses two different on-peak windows depending on the time of year. Both windows are just two hours long, every day.
In both seasons, 22 out of every 24 hours are off-peak. That means 92% of your time is at the lower rate. The question is simply: what's happening during that other 8%?
| Factor | Standard Flat Rate | Time-of-Use Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Price structure | Same price 24/7 | Varies by time of day |
| On-peak price | 13¢/kWh (always) | 24¢/kWh (2 hrs/day) |
| Off-peak price | 13¢/kWh (always) | 8¢/kWh (22 hrs/day) |
| Predictability | Very predictable | Depends on your habits |
| Savings potential | None — locked in | High if usage is off-peak |
| Risk | None | Higher bill if peak-heavy |
| Best for | Households with unpredictable or peak-heavy usage | Households with flexible or naturally off-peak usage |
The honest answer is that it depends entirely on your specific usage pattern. Here are the common household types that tend to fall on each side:
All of the above is useful context — but none of it tells you what you would actually save or lose. The only way to know for certain is to take your actual hourly usage data and recalculate your bill under each rate structure.
Your smart meter records your energy use every hour, every day. Wake Electric makes that data available to you through their member portal. When you provide that data to me, I run it through a full year of calculations — hour by hour, season by season — and show you exactly what your bill would have been under TOU vs. what it was on the flat rate.
Generic TOU calculators ask you to estimate how much energy you use during peak hours. Most people have no idea, and the estimates are almost always wrong. The analysis I run uses your actual metered data — not approximations — so the result reflects your real household, not a generic profile.
A personalized report showing your monthly savings or loss for the full year, your actual load curve overlaid on the peak windows, and a load-shift scenario showing how small changes in behavior could save even more. Plus a plain-English bottom line: switch or don't, and why.
I'll run your numbers and give you a straight answer — no sales pitch, no pressure. If TOU isn't right for you, I'll tell you that too.