Lots of power bills in the Myrtle Beach, SC area will soon change. How to keep costs down

Horry Electric Cooperative (HEC) residential customers’ billing will change on Nov. 1 to reflect the winter season. From April to October, the cooperative’s peak hours are between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m., but from November to March the peak window shifts to 6:00 to 9:00 a.m.

HEC restructured its residential rate in September to introduce peak hours into its model. During the peak window, the one hour during which a consumer uses the most electricity is charged at $12 per kilowatt, significantly more than the previous flat rate.

The rest of the month, including hours in the peak window that aren’t the highest-usage hour, electricity use is charged at a rate of $0.069 per kilowatt hour.

However, because residential customers also get a $0.01 per kilowatt hour credit, the net rate is about $0.06 per kilowatt hours for most of the month. The previous flat rate for HEC members was, on average, $0.124 per kilowatt hour.

Because even one hour of heavy electricity use during the peak window can hike up consumers’ bills, HEC members keeping an eye on spending should limit energy use between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m.

Household appliances like electric water heaters, clothes dryers, HVAC systems, pool pumps and electric vehicle chargers can consume a lot of energy, so waiting to run them until before or after the peak window will save users money.

Customers who opted into Santee Cooper’s residential time-of-use rate schedule also have a different model in the winter.

During what it calls the summer period from June to September, Santee Cooper charges time-of-use customers $0.3438 per kilowatt hour during on-peak hours of 1:00 though 7:00 p.m., except on Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day. In the off-peak hours, these customers pay $0.0613 per kilowatt hour.

Santee Cooper calls the rest of the year, October through May, the non-summer period.

In this non-summer period, only the months of December, January and February have on-peak hours between 6:00 to 10:00 a.m., excluding Christmas Day and New Years. During this window, customers are charged $0.3094 per kilowatt hour. All other hours in the non-summer period are charged at $0.0613 per kilowatt hours.

However, this pricing model only applies to residential time-of-use customers. Most Santee Cooper customers are on a residential general service schedule, which simply charges consumers $0.1197 per kilowatt hour during the summer period and $0.0997 per kilowatt hour during the non-summer period.

This story was originally published October 28, 2024 at 6:00 AM.