Connecticut · Investor Owned · serves 78 ZIP codes
United Illuminating Co 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? United Illuminating’s peak hours, plan by plan →
What does United Illuminating cost at a normal month’s usage?
A household using 1,000 kWh a month pays about $4,051 a year on the cheapest of the 2 plans we can price here — Residential Service Time-of-Use — and $4,177 on the priciest. Same house, same wires.
| A month of | Cheapest, a year | On which plan | Priciest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 kWh | $2,104 | Residential Service Time-of-Use | $2,166 |
| 1,000 kWh | $4,051 | Residential Service Time-of-Use | $4,177 |
| 2,000 kWh | $7,946 | Residential Service Time-of-Use | $8,197 |
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 United Illuminating Co files, and the bill lands anywhere between $3,223 and $3,322 a year. That $99 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.
The plan most households land on by default, Residential Service, comes to about $3,322. The cheapest option here, Residential Service Time-of-Use, comes to $3,223 — a gap of about $99 a year for a household that never changed a single habit. Whether you can actually capture that depends on when you use power, which is what the calculator below is for.
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.
How United Illuminating compares across Connecticut
Run the same three-bedroom house with central air through its default plan at each of the 3 Connecticut utilities we cover, and United Illuminating is the dearest of the lot at about $3,322 a year; the state median is $2,877. The cheapest, Groton Dept of Utilities, charges $1,608 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 $1,786 here against a state median of $1,537, and the same house with an electric car charging overnight about $4,544 against $3,943. Effective rate, fixed charge included, is 35.1¢ per kilowatt-hour for the family home.
Inside United Illuminating itself, the gap between its cheapest and dearest plan for that house is $99 a year — less than the $1,714 between Connecticut's cheapest and dearest utilities. Here the address decides most of the bill; the plan decides the rest.
Every Connecticut 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 4,566 kWh a year. Compare it to the total on your bill and adjust until it’s close.
Same usage, different plan
$79a year
That is the gap between the cheapest plan you could be on — Residential Service Time-of-Use — and the priciest. Not by using less power. By being billed differently for the same power.
| Plan | Per year | Vs best |
|---|---|---|
| Residential Service Time-of-UsePeak hits noon–8pm on weekdays, all year. | $1,605 | — |
| Residential ServiceOne rate, every hour of the year. | $1,684 | +$79 |
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.