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Tariff data · 2026-08-27
← Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC · NC

RETC (Residential Service All-Electric Time of Use with Critical Peak Pricing))

When does peak hit on Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC’s RETC? Peak hits 6am–9am in Oct–Apr, 6pm–9pm in May–Sep — every day.

  • peak21.84¢
  • mid10.24¢
  • off-peak7.54¢
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Every hour of the year at this rate, drawn to scale — 24 hours across, 12 months deep, height is ¢/kWh. The tallest bar is 21.8¢ (Jan, 6am), the shortest is 7.5¢ (Jan, 1am) — 2.9× apart.
Weekdays
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Weekends
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec

What does RETC cost a year?

HouseholdUsesA monthPer yearWorks out to
Apartment

One or two people, no central air, no electric heat

4,866 kWh$59$71014.6¢ / kWh
Family home

Three or four people with central air conditioning

9,453 kWh$102$1,22513.0¢ / kWh
Home with an EV

Same house, plus an electric car charging overnight

13,103 kWh$129$1,54511.8¢ / 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

PeriodRateApplies when
peak21.84¢6am–9am, October–April; 6pm–9pm, May–September
mid10.24¢4pm–1am, 3am–6am, 9am–11am, 3am–11am, October–April; 9pm–1am, 6am–6pm, 6am–1am, May–September
off-peak7.54¢1am–3am, 11am–4pm, October–April; 1am–6am, May–September

Plus a fixed charge of $14 per month.

Should you be on RETC?

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 21.8¢ a kWh; at the best hour, 7.5¢ — 2.9× 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 $52 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 $168 a year in fixed fees. On the apartment above that is 24% of the whole bill; on the house with a car charging in it, 11%. 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 $142 in July and $78 in February — a $64 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 1st cheapest of 22 — nothing else here beats it for that household.

Against Residential Service (RES-55) Single Phase, which looks like the plan you land on by default, this one comes out $349 less per year (22%). 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

All 30 Duke Energy Carolinas plans →

Who can be on Duke Energy Carolinas’s RETC (Residential Service All-Electric Time of Use with Critical Peak Pricing))?

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. Available only to residential customers in residences, condominiums, mobile homes, or individually-metered apartments which provide independent and permanent facilities complete for living, sleeping, eating, cooking, and sanitation, and which are certified to meet the standards of the Energy Star program of the United States Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency.

Quoted from the filed tariff. Your utility decides eligibility, not us; check with them before you switch.

If this is new to you

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/electric-nc/ncschedulere-tc.pdf?rev=ca569acfed7944fca383d68fd021a9f6