RS Time-of-Use Residential Rate
When does peak hit on City of Memphis - (TN)’s RS Time-of-Use Residential Rate? Peak hits 1pm–7pm on weekdays, all year.
- peak22.49¢
- mid16.68¢
- off-peak12.60¢
Weekends are off-peak all day — the cheapest time to run anything you can schedule.
What does RS Time-of-Use Residential Rate cost a year?
| Household | Uses | A month | Per year | Works out to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apartment One or two people, no central air, no electric heat | 4,866 kWh | $70 | $841 | 17.3¢ / kWh |
| Family home Three or four people with central air conditioning | 9,453 kWh | $125 | $1,498 | 15.8¢ / kWh |
| Home with an EV Same house, plus an electric car charging overnight | 13,103 kWh | $164 | $1,969 | 15.0¢ / kWh |
Estimates, not quotes. We run three made-up but realistic households through this tariff hour by hour for a full year — including the way air conditioning loads the afternoon and an EV loads the small hours. Your own bill depends on when you actually use electricity, which is exactly the thing a per-kWh number hides.
What you actually pay
| Period | Rate | Applies when |
|---|---|---|
| peak | 22.49¢ | 1pm–7pm, June–September |
| mid | 16.68¢ | 4am–10am, December–March |
| off-peak | 12.60¢ | 10am–4am, midnight–midnight, December–March; midnight–midnight, April–May, October–November; 7pm–1pm, midnight–midnight, June–September |
Plus a fixed charge of $15.1 per month.
Should you be on RS Time-of-Use Residential Rate?
This is a time-of-use plan, which means the clock decides your bill as much as the meter does. At the worst hour you pay 22.5¢ a kWh; at the best hour, 12.6¢ — 1.8× apart for identical electricity.
That gap is worth real money only if you can move load into it. Every kilowatt-hour a day you shift from 1pm to midnight is about $36 a year. A dishwasher run is roughly 1.5 kWh; an EV commute charge is 8 to 12. If your day is fixed — you are home in the evening and the air conditioner runs when it runs — a plan like this costs you more, not less.
Before a single kilowatt-hour moves, this plan charges $181 a year in fixed fees. On the apartment above that is 22% of the whole bill; on the house with a car charging in it, 9%. Fixed charges are invisible in a cents-per-kWh comparison and they punish small users hardest — if you use very little electricity, the headline rate is the least important number on this page.
Expect the bill to move with the calendar. The same family home costs about $185 in July and $94 in February — a $90 spread driven by heating and cooling far more than by anything you chose. Budget against the July figure, not the average, and a summer bill stops being a surprise.
How it compares to City of Memphis’s other plans
Measured against the other residential plans this utility files, a family home lands 1st cheapest of 2 — nothing else here beats it for that household.
Against RS Standard Residential Rate, which looks like the plan you land on by default, this one comes out $43 less per year (3%). We infer the default from the tariff structure rather than a flag in the data, so confirm it against your own bill before you switch.
Other City of Memphis plans
Who can be on City of Memphis’s RS Time-of-Use Residential Rate?
Eligibility is not our judgement — it is written into the tariff City of Memphis filed. This is what that document says:
The Time-of-Use Residential Rate will be available to those residential customers who have a smart meter and have elected the voluntary rate and for electric service to a single-family dwelling (including its appurtenances if served through the same meter), where the major use of electricity is for domestic purposes such as lighting, household appliances, and the personal comfort and convenience of those residing therein. Electricity supplied under the Time-of-Use Residential Electric Rate Agreement is for the exclusive use of the Customer and shall not be resold or shared with others.
Quoted from the filed tariff. Your utility decides eligibility, not us; check with them before you switch.
If this is new to you
- When is electricity cheapest? Off-peak hours explained
Overnight, usually. All weekend, often. The exact hours are in your tariff, not in a rule of thumb.
- Should you switch to a time-of-use electricity plan?
A wide peak-to-off-peak gap is a lever, not a saving. Levers need something to move.
- When should you charge an electric car at home?
The single biggest load most homes can move, and the easiest to automate.
- Why is my electric bill so high in summer?
Usually three causes at once, and only one of them is your air conditioner.
Where this comes from
- Effective
- 2026-03-04
the date this tariff took effect
- Covers
- delivery + supply
the ZIP-code service map lists this territory as bundled, so the utility sells delivery and supply together
- Enrollment
- open to new customers
Tariff document: https://www.mlgw.com/images/content/files/pdf_rates/RS%20TOU%20Jan26.pdf