Residential TOD Underground Standard (A04)
When does peak hit on Northern States Power Co - Minnesota’s Residential TOD Underground Standard? Peak hits 9am–9pm on weekdays, all year.
- peak28.55¢
- mid23.82¢
- off-peak9.17¢
Weekends are off-peak all day — the cheapest time to run anything you can schedule.
What does Residential TOD Underground Standard 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 | $71 | $852 | 17.5¢ / kWh |
| Family home Three or four people with central air conditioning | 9,453 kWh | $138 | $1,653 | 17.5¢ / kWh |
| Home with an EV Same house, plus an electric car charging overnight | 13,103 kWh | $166 | $1,988 | 15.2¢ / 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 | 28.55¢ | 9am–9pm, June–September |
| mid | 23.82¢ | 9am–9pm, October–May |
| off-peak | 9.17¢ | 9pm–9am, midnight–midnight, October–May |
| off-peak | 9.17¢ | 9pm–9am, midnight–midnight, June–September |
Plus a fixed charge of $6 per month.
Should you be on Residential TOD Underground Standard?
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 28.6¢ a kWh; at the best hour, 9.2¢ — 3.1× 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 9am to midnight is about $71 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 $72 a year in fixed fees. On the apartment above that is 8% of the whole bill; on the house with a car charging in it, 4%. 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 $214 in July and $98 in February — a $116 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 Northern States Power Co - Minnesota’s other plans
Measured against the other residential plans this utility files, a family home lands 7th cheapest of 8. The cheapest option, Residential Service - Overhead Electric Space Heating (A01), would run about $220 a year less.
Against Residential Service - Overhead Standard (A01), which looks like the plan you land on by default, this one comes out $33 more per year (2%). 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 Northern States Power Co - Minnesota plans
- Residential Service - Overhead Electric Space Heating (A01)flat
- Residential Service - Overhead Standard (A01)flat
- Residential Service - Underground Electric Space Heating (A03)flat
- Residential Service - Underground Standard (A03)flat
- Residential TOD Overhead Electric Space Heating (A02)TOU
- Residential TOD Overhead Standard (A02)TOU
- Residential TOD Underground Electric Space Heating (A04)TOU
Who can be on Northern States Power Co - Minnesota’s Residential TOD Underground Standard (A04)?
Eligibility is not our judgement — it is written into the tariff Northern States Power Co - Minnesota filed. This is what that document says:
Available to any residential customer for domestic purposes only in a single private residence and qualifying farm customers.
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
- 2025-01-01
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://xcelnew.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#1U0000011ttV/a/8b000002fjAV/BD4.UWYqhUeD9gdYeItnN3efY8274cNpjireIfBgkU8