Virginia · Cooperative · serves 55 ZIP codes
Northern Virginia Elec Coop rate plans
2 residential plans are currently open to new customers. Some charge different prices depending on the hour — which is where most of the savings hide.
Looking for when the expensive hours are? Northern Virginia Elec’s peak hours, plan by plan →
What does Northern Virginia Elec cost at a normal month’s usage?
A household using 1,000 kWh a month pays about $1,490 a year on the cheapest of the 2 plans we can price here — Schedule R-1, Residental Service — and $1,542 on the priciest. Same house, same wires.
| A month of | Cheapest, a year | On which plan | Priciest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 kWh | $873 | Schedule R-1, Residental Service | $875 |
| 1,000 kWh | $1,490 | Schedule R-1, Residental Service | $1,542 |
| 2,000 kWh | $2,724 | Schedule R-1, Residental Service | $2,876 |
The same plan is cheapest at every level of use here, so the answer does not turn on how much you use. Estimates from the filed tariff, priced hour by hour on a household with central air — not a quote.
How much does the plan you pick actually matter here?
Run the same three-bedroom house with central air through every plan Northern Virginia Elec Coop files, and the bill lands anywhere between $1,227 and $1,258 a year. That $31 spread is not a difference in electricity — it is the same kilowatt-hours, from the same wires, priced under different rules. Nobody sends you a letter when you are on the wrong side of it.
1 of these 2 plans price by the hour. Those are the ones where moving laundry, dishes, or car charging into the cheap window changes the bill; on the rest, the clock is irrelevant and only the total matters. Which camp you belong in is the first question worth settling, because it decides whether shifting your day is worth anything at all.
Watch the fixed charges too. Across these plans they run from $208 to $256 a year before a single kilowatt-hour is counted. For a small household that difference alone can outweigh the per-kWh price, which is why comparing cents per kilowatt-hour on its own quietly misleads.
How Northern Virginia Elec compares across Virginia
Run the same three-bedroom house with central air through its default plan at each of the 5 Virginia utilities we cover, and Northern Virginia Elec is the cheapest of the lot at about $1,227 a year; the state median is $1,614. The dearest, Kentucky Utilities, charges $2,222 for identical use — a gap set by the address, not by anything either household did.
The other two households tell the same story in different sizes: a small apartment pays about $756 here against a state median of $938, and the same house with an electric car charging overnight about $1,602 against $2,181. Effective rate, fixed charge included, is 13.0¢ per kilowatt-hour for the family home.
Inside Northern Virginia Elec itself, the gap between its cheapest and dearest plan for that house is $31 a year — less than the $995 between Virginia's cheapest and dearest utilities. Here the address decides most of the bill; the plan decides the rest.
Every Virginia utility we cover, priced for the same three households →
Which plan would cost you least?
No bill upload, no sign-up. Tell us roughly what a month costs you and what runs on electricity — we price every plan against the same household and show you the gap.
That adds up to 13,880 kWh a year. Compare it to the total on your bill and adjust until it’s close.
Same usage, different plan
$54a year
That is the gap between the cheapest plan you could be on — Schedule R-1, Residental Service — and the priciest. Not by using less power. By being billed differently for the same power.
| Plan | Per year | Vs best |
|---|---|---|
| Schedule R-1, Residental ServiceOne rate, every hour of the year. | $1,681 | — |
| Schedule R1-EV, Residential Electric VehiclePeak hits 6am–11pm every day, all year. | $1,736 | +$54 |
An estimate, not a quote. Supply charges move month to month, and your real usage pattern is not exactly this one. What it does show reliably is the gap between plans — both are priced off the same assumptions.
Before you switch anything
- What is a time-of-use electricity rate?
The same kilowatt-hour, priced differently depending on when you use it.
- 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.
- How to compare electricity plans without getting it wrong
Six things that break a comparison, and the order to check them in.
Every plan, in detail
Hour-by-hour schedules, tier thresholds, and the tariff each one comes from.