Colorado · Cooperative · serves 63 ZIP codes
Intermountain Rural Elec Assn 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.
What does Intermountain Rural Elec Assn's residential rate cost?
Intermountain Rural Elec Assn 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 $739 and a three-bedroom house with central air to about $1,236 — an effective 15.2¢ and 13.1¢ 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 $137 in July and $82 in February. Budget against the higher figure and the summer bill stops being a surprise.
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.
Residential Service (A)
The only residential plan Intermountain Rural Elec Assn currently files that we can price — everything about it is on this page.
Does the hour matter on Residential Service? No — one rate, every hour of the year.
- off-peak10.82¢
There is no peak and no off-peak here: 10.82¢ per kilowatt-hour at 3am is the same as at 6pm, on a Sunday as on a Tuesday, in July as in January. Moving laundry or car charging to another time of day will not change this bill by a cent. What does change it is how much you use, and the fixed charge below, which you pay whether you use anything or not.
What does Residential Service 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 | $62 | $739 | 15.2¢ / kWh |
| Family home Three or four people with central air conditioning | 9,453 kWh | $103 | $1,236 | 13.1¢ / kWh |
| Home with an EV Same house, plus an electric car charging overnight | 13,103 kWh | $136 | $1,631 | 12.4¢ / 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 | 10.82¢ | midnight–midnight |
Plus a fixed charge of $17.75 per month.
Should you be on Residential Service?
This plan bills a demand charge on top of the per-kWh rates: a fee tied to your single highest hour of the month. Two homes using the same total electricity can pay very different amounts if one of them runs the dryer, the oven, and the car charger at the same moment. We do not price demand charges yet, so treat every dollar figure on this page as a floor, not a total.
Before a single kilowatt-hour moves, this plan charges $213 a year in fixed fees. On the apartment above that is 29% of the whole bill; on the house with a car charging in it, 13%. 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 $137 in July and $82 in February — a $54 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.
If this is new to you
- How to read your electric bill
Four kinds of charge, only two of which you can do anything about.
- What is a demand charge on a residential electric bill?
Billed for your worst hour, not your total. Rare on homes, and growing.
- What is critical peak pricing? Peak-day events on your electric bill, explained
A dozen brutally expensive afternoons a year, in exchange for a discount on the other 353 days.
Where this comes from
- Effective
- 2024-03-01
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: https://core.coop/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CORERatesRegulations052025.pdf