South Carolina · Cooperative · serves 50 ZIP codes
Aiken Electric Coop Inc rate plans
One residential plan is currently open to new customers. It does not price by hour, so shifting when you use power won’t change your bill here.
A household using 1,000 kWh a month pays about $1,858 a year on SINGLE-PHASE SERVICE AP, the only residential plan here — $1,196 at 500 kWh, $3,193 at 2,000 kWh.
What does Aiken Electric Coop Inc's residential rate cost?
Aiken Electric Coop Inc files a single residential tariff, so there is no plan to choose between — everyone served here is on the same terms. That makes this page short on comparison and long on one question instead: what does that tariff actually do to a bill?
Priced hour by hour across a full year, a small apartment on this tariff comes to about $1,072 and a three-bedroom house with central air to about $1,572 — an effective 22.0¢ and 16.6¢ per kilowatt-hour once the fixed charge is spread across everything used.
With one plan and no hourly pricing, the only lever left is using less. Moving laundry or car charging to the middle of the night changes nothing here, which is worth knowing before you rearrange your evenings for no reason.
Expect the bill to swing with the weather rather than with anything you decide: the same house costs around $167 in July and $107 in February. Budget against the higher figure and the summer bill stops being a surprise.
How Aiken Electric Coop compares across South Carolina
Run the same three-bedroom house with central air through its default plan at each of the 4 South Carolina utilities we cover, and Aiken Electric Coop comes in 2nd cheapest at about $1,572 a year; the state median is $1,667. The range runs from $1,292 at Berkeley Electric Coop to $1,794 at Dominion Energy South Carolina, and since the utility is set by the address, the part of that gap you can act on is the plan, not the company.
The other two households tell the same story in different sizes: a small apartment pays about $1,072 here against a state median of $985, and the same house with an electric car charging overnight about $1,978 against $2,081. Effective rate, fixed charge included, is 16.6¢ per kilowatt-hour for the family home.
Every South Carolina utility we cover, priced for the same three households →
Making sense of the bill
- How to read your electric bill
Four kinds of charge, only two of which you can do anything about.
- Fixed charges on your electric bill: what they are and why they matter
The line that makes cents-per-kilowatt-hour comparisons quietly wrong.
- How to compare electricity plans without getting it wrong
Six things that break a comparison, and the order to check them in.
SINGLE-PHASE SERVICE AP
The only residential plan Aiken Electric Coop currently files that we can price — everything about it is on this page.
When does peak hit on Aiken Electric Coop Inc’s SINGLE-PHASE SERVICE AP? The hour never matters here — only the season. Rates peak November–June.
- off-peak13.00¢
Weekends are off-peak all day — the cheapest time to run anything you can schedule.
What does SINGLE-PHASE SERVICE AP 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 | $89 | $1,072 | 22.0¢ / kWh |
| Family home Three or four people with central air conditioning | 9,453 kWh | $131 | $1,572 | 16.6¢ / kWh |
| Home with an EV Same house, plus an electric car charging overnight | 13,103 kWh | $165 | $1,978 | 15.1¢ / 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 |
|---|---|---|
| off-peak | 13.00¢ up to 200 kWh10.85¢ up to 1000 kWh12.10¢ | midnight–midnight, July–October |
| off-peak | 13.00¢ up to 200 kWh10.85¢ up to 1000 kWh10.40¢ | midnight–midnight, November–June |
Plus a fixed charge of $1.35 per day — so longer months cost more before you use a single kWh.
Should you be on SINGLE-PHASE SERVICE AP?
The hour of day does not change what you pay here — the month does. Running the same house through the full year, July costs about $167 and February about $107. That $60 swing is part rate and part weather, and it is the reason a budget built on your spring bill will break in July.
There is a usage cliff to watch. The first 1000 kWh each month are billed at 10.8¢; past that line the rate steps up to 12.1¢ — 12% more for every unit after. The last kilowatt-hour of a heavy month is the expensive one, which is why cutting a little off a big month saves more than cutting the same amount off a small one.
Before a single kilowatt-hour moves, this plan charges $493 a year in fixed fees. On the apartment above that is 46% of the whole bill; on the house with a car charging in it, 25%. 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.
If this is new to you
- Tiered billing for electricity: why the last kWh costs more
A cheap allowance, then a cliff. Where the cliff sits is the whole game.
- 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.
- Why is my electric bill so high in summer?
Usually three causes at once, and only one of them is your air conditioner.
- Why is my electric bill so high? Seven causes, in the order to check them
Seven causes, ranked by how often they are the answer. Only two are about using more.
Where this comes from
- Effective
- 2025-01-01
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: http://www.aikenco-op.org/servicerules/scheduleAP.pdf