Residential Time of Use with Critical Peak Pricing (R-TOU-CPP) Single Phase
When does peak hit on Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC’s Residential Time of Use with Critical Peak Pricing? Peak hits 6am–9am in Oct–Apr, 6pm–9pm in May–Sep — every day.
- peak24.05¢
- mid13.10¢
- off-peak10.37¢
What does Residential Time of Use with Critical Peak Pricing 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 | $72 | $867 | 17.8¢ / kWh |
| Family home Three or four people with central air conditioning | 9,453 kWh | $126 | $1,509 | 16.0¢ / kWh |
| Home with an EV Same house, plus an electric car charging overnight | 13,103 kWh | $161 | $1,933 | 14.8¢ / 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 | 24.05¢ | 6am–9am, October–April; 6pm–9pm, May–September |
| mid | 13.10¢ | 4pm–1am, 3am–6am, 9am–11am, 3am–11am, October–April; 9pm–1am, 6am–6pm, 6am–1am, May–September |
| off-peak | 10.37¢ | 1am–3am, 11am–4pm, October–April; 1am–6am, May–September |
Plus a fixed charge of $15.81 per month.
Should you be on Residential Time of Use with Critical Peak Pricing?
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 24.0¢ a kWh; at the best hour, 10.4¢ — 2.3× 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 6am to 1am is about $50 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 $190 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, 10%. 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 $175 in July and $97 in February — a $78 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 Duke Energy Carolinas’s other plans
Measured against the other residential plans this utility files, a family home lands 11th cheapest of 22. The cheapest option, RETC (Residential Service All-Electric Time of Use with Critical Peak Pricing)), would run about $284 a year less.
Against Residential Service (RES-55) Single Phase, which looks like the plan you land on by default, this one comes out $64 less per year (4%). 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 Duke Energy Carolinas plans
- ES (Residential Service Energy Star, All-Electric)flat
- ES (Residential Service Energy Star, Standard)flat
- RE (Residential Electric Water Heating and Space Conditioning)flat
- Residential - RS (SC)flat
- Residential Electric Water Heating and Space Conditioning - REflat
- Residential Service - Single Phaseflat
- Residential Service - Three Phaseflat
- Residential Service (RES-55) Single Phaseflat
- Residential Service (RES-55) Three Phaseflat
- Residential Service Energy Star All-Electric ESflat
- Residential Service Energy Star Standard ESflat
- Residential Service Solar Time-of-Use (R-STOU) Single Phasedemand
Who can be on Duke Energy Carolinas’s Residential Time of Use with Critical Peak Pricing (R-TOU-CPP) Single Phase?
Eligibility is not our judgement — it is written into the tariff Duke Energy Carolinas filed. This is what that document says:
THIS RATE IS MEANT FOR COMPARISON PURPOSES ONLY - CRITICAL PEAK TIME WINDOWS AND PRICING ARE NOT INCLUDED. The types of service to which this Schedule is applicable are alternating current, 60 hertz, either single phase 2 or 3 wires, or three phase 4 wires, at Company's standard voltages of 240 volts or less.
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
- 2026-01-01
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.duke-energy.com/-/media/pdfs/for-your-home/rates/dep-nc/leaf-no-502-schedule-r-tou.pdf?rev=8f3c70ef9a5a494ea663b02eb6950abf