Time-of-use pricing rewards households that can move flexible loads away from peak windows. It can punish households whose largest loads happen exactly when the price is highest.
What TOU means
The price per kWh changes by hour or block of hours. A TOU plan can be useful when laundry, dishwashing, EV charging, or pool pumping can move to cheaper windows.
Peak vs off-peak
Peak windows can be several times more expensive than off-peak windows. The plan is not automatically good or bad; it depends on whether your actual usage can shift.
Who should avoid it
If someone works from home during the peak period, if medical equipment requires steady power, or if cooling cannot be shifted, a flat benchmark may be easier to manage.
Client-side tool · PII 0
California example estimator
Estimated monthly bill
Midpoint about $178 at 31.8¢/kWh.
Next step
Use the estimator with your monthly kWh usage, then compare your result with state benchmarks before making billing or assistance decisions.
Quick answers
Do TOU rates always save money?
No. They save money only when enough usage moves to cheaper hours.
Author
wattbenchs Data Desk publishes consumer-facing explanations based on public EIA data, visible methodology, and conservative bill estimates. This article was written directly in Codex without external API or external LLM prose generation.