Heartland Board Approves New Rates

After hearing member comments at an open meeting on Friday, January 28, the Heartland Rural Electric Cooperative Board of Directors voted unanimously to adopt new electric rates designed to give consumer-members more control over their bills while ensuring the co-op is ready for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

The new rates, which will go into effect April 1, 2022, were developed as a result of a cost of service study conducted by Guernsey, an Oklahoma City-based consulting company. The cost of service study indicated a need for a small rate increase of around 1.5%.

The rate increase is expected to be offset on consumer-members' bills by savings on the Power Cost Adjustment thanks to cost savings from the cooperative's solar farms. As a result, the average consumer-member should see virtually no difference on their bill if they choose the rate that best fits their usage.

The new general service rates will offer new opportunities for Heartland consumer-members to save on their electric bills by reducing usage during peak times, when it is more expensive for Heartland to buy wholesale power for distribution.

The Peak Savers rate features a lower per-kilowatt-hour (kWh) energy charge all year long, but adds a peak charge of $2 per kilowatt (kW) used during the consumer-member’s monthly peak hour (hour of highest electric usage) in each summer month. Consumer-members will be alerted to potential peak days the day before.

Consumer-members who opt for the Time of Use rate will pay a higher energy charge from 3 to 8 p.m. but a lower energy charge at all other times. The Time of Use EV rate, available exclusively to owners of electric vehicles, adds a third time period from midnight to 4 a.m. during which electric vehicles can be charged at an extremely low cost.

General service consumer-members will be moved to the Peak Savers rate by default on April 1, but will be able to switch to the Time of Use rate upon request.

For more information, please visit our Rates page.

Be on the lookout for additional tools and resources, including a rate calculator tool to help you determine the best rate for you based on your actual usage data, in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, please direct questions to our email.