Rates

Along with this increase to the kW demand charge, there is a decrease to the kWh energy rates. This decrease in the energy rates for every kWh purchased results in many bills actually decreasing slightly.

While this change has minimal impact to bills, it provides improved transparency of the cost to serve each member. Your electric cooperative pays a power bill to our G&T cooperative which includes a kW demand charge. About 23% of your electric bill goes to cover that G&T demand charge. Another 27% of your electric bill goes to pay for the demand costs associated with distribution infrastructure necessary to serve your site. Your electric cooperative saves a little bit from that demand expense when you set lower kW demands. So, this rate change allows your electric cooperative to provide some of that savings back to you on those months.

Your electric cooperative did not have residential kW demand meter data until new meters were installed around 2018. The board required hundreds of studies to be run in order to ensure that this residential demand rate, if implemented, provided savings possibilities to members while also minimizing any possible cost increases to the vast majority of members. Study scenarios were performed across multiple years in order to understand impacts to and benefit the membership. The board was confident in these results after the final study scenarios completed in late 2023.

No, there is no expected notable decrease or increase to less efficient home power bills.  We reviewed multiple sample residences known to be less efficient and found a similar distribution of minimal decreases and minimal increases to such bills.

The answer is yes, for most residential members. We have some members who already spread the use of an appliance or two (like the dishwasher) outside of the time when they are doing other things. If this is convenient for you to do, you can likely take advantage and decrease your max kW demand resulting in a decrease to your power bills. If it’s convenient for you on some months and not others, don’t sweat it! We have the power you need when you need it, and these demand rates were designed to minimize cost increases to you on those months.

Sure! Most members set their peak kW demand in the morning or evening. If you have something like a dishwasher that is convenient to run at a different time, just make the switch to running that outside those busy times. If you’re worried about accidentally setting a higher kW demand outside those busy times due to this change, don’t worry. We’ve got your back! All residential demands set outside the morning hours of 6-9 AM and evening hours of 4-8 PM are waived, so that members who choose to make such changes don’t have to worry that they might have set a new kW demand outside of busy times. This further ensures that savings you provide the membership comes back to you.

Monthly kWh is simply the total energy (measured in kilowatt-hours) delivered to power a site over the course of a month. Residential kW demand is the maximum energy delivered to that site in one hour over that month.

Imagine turning on 1,000 watts (1 kW) of lights. If you run those lights for 1 hour, and run nothing else for the rest of the month, then your electric bill will include 1 kWh for the energy to run those lights. That 1 kWh during that 1 hour is also your residential kW demand.

If you run those same lights for 100 hours next month and run nothing else for the rest of the month, then your next electric bill will include 100 kWh for the energy to run those 1 kW lights for 100 hours. But, since you didn’t need more than 1 kW PER hour of running those lights, your residential kW demand is still just 1 kW.

Here’s a water analogy that might help: Let’s say you need to fill a 100 gallon stock tank. Instead of water, lets assume we’re filling that stock tank with crystal clear energy. Instead of measuring gallons, we’re measuring kWh. You could install a 10 kWh per-hour pump that would fill that tank in 10 hours (10 kWh/hour x 10 hours = 100 kWh). Or, you could install a 100 kWh per-hour pump that would take 1 hour to fill that tank (100 kWh/hour x 1 hour = 100 kWh). You’ll fill the tank with 100 kWh of crystal clear energy either way, but the bigger pump will put a higher demand on your well and pipes…er’ uh…energy system to run. It will set a 100 kW demand. The smaller pump will only set a 10 kW demand.

No, demand billing is not kWh energy time-of-use billing. Evergy’s kWh time-of-use billing changes the rate paid per kWh at various times of the day, often with higher rates at peak times and lower rates at off-peak times. On the other hand, residential kW demand is simply the maximum power needed in an hour to power your home or site; the cooperative’s kWh rates do NOT change with time of day.

If you are interested, we’d be glad to run your usage through our calculator, and provide you with the estimated change to your bill. Just give us a call at 660-826-2900, weekdays between 7 AM and 4 PM. It’s a quick process and we can provide you the results right over the phone.

If you’d like to play with a non-specific demand calculator and see what different appliances could save you money by using outside your busiest times, click here.