DR-SES (Solar Energy Systems)

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.

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 73.9¢ a kWh; at the best hour, 35.1¢ — 2.1× 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 4pm to midnight is about $142 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 $290 a year in fixed fees. On the apartment above that is 12% of the whole bill; on the house with a car charging in it, 5%. 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 $587 in July and $266 in February — a $322 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.