1(M) Residential Smart Saver Service
When does peak hit on Union Electric Co - (MO)’s 1? Peak hits 3pm–7pm every day, all year.
- peak41.29¢
- mid12.94¢
- off-peak7.13¢
What does 1 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 | $60 | $724 | 14.9¢ / kWh |
| Family home Three or four people with central air conditioning | 9,453 kWh | $116 | $1,396 | 14.8¢ / kWh |
| Home with an EV Same house, plus an electric car charging overnight | 13,103 kWh | $139 | $1,672 | 12.8¢ / 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 | 41.29¢ | 3pm–7pm, June–September |
| mid | 22.47¢ | 6am–8am, 6pm–8pm, October–May |
| mid | 12.94¢ | 6am–3pm, 7pm–10pm, 6am–10pm, June–September |
| mid | 8.56¢ | 8am–6pm, 8pm–10pm, 6am–10pm, October–May |
| mid | 8.45¢ | 10pm–6am, June–September |
| off-peak | 7.13¢ | 10pm–6am, October–May |
Plus a fixed charge of $9 per month.
Should you be on 1?
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 41.3¢ a kWh; at the best hour, 8.4¢ — 4.9× 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 3pm to midnight is about $120 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 $108 a year in fixed fees. On the apartment above that is 15% of the whole bill; on the house with a car charging in it, 6%. 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 $207 in July and $73 in February — a $134 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 Union Electric Co’s other plans
Measured against the other residential plans this utility files, a family home lands 4th cheapest of 4. The cheapest option, 1(M) Residential Overnight Saver Service, would run about $169 a year less.
Against 1(M) Residential Anytime Service Rate, which looks like the plan you land on by default, this one comes out $156 more per year (13%). 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 Union Electric Co plans
Who can be on Union Electric Co’s 1(M) Residential Smart Saver Service?
Eligibility is not our judgement — it is written into the tariff Union Electric Co filed. This is what that document says:
This optional rate is available at customer's election to all residential customers, except those having a net metering agreement or as described in 4.f. below, being served through an advanced meter and supplied by the Company to individually metered residences and apartments consisting of one or more rooms for the use of one or more persons as a housekeeping unit with space for eating, living and sleeping, and permanent provisions for cooking and sanitation.
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
- 2024-09-30
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.ameren.com/-/media/rates/files/missouri/uecsheet54rate1mres.ashx