Understanding Your Bill

Front

Distribution charges are the co-op’s costs to deliver energy to your location.

Monthly Service Availability Charge

This is a flat monthly charge to cover the fixed costs of an electric distribution system, including poles, wires, substations, transformers, meters, tree trimming, pole testing, interest, depreciation, and the costs of repairs, maintenance, and upgrades. The Service Availability charge helps pay for electric reliability investments.

Energy Charge

The cost for the minimum delivery system to provide electric service. This shows the number of kilowatt-hours (kWh) you used during this billing period (typically 30 days), times our electric rate. You can reduce this charge through energy-efficiency measures, including our energy audits.

Why do I have to pay a flat monthly service charge even if I’m not using power?

As a member of Midwest Electric, your bill is an investment in the co-op that benefits you and the community. We share the costs of building and maintaining a reliable local energy grid among our more than 11,000 members.

The monthly service charge supports the operation and maintenance of our electric system, ensuring your electricity is available when you need it. This charge covers cybersecurity, as well as the upkeep of poles, substations, and equipment to keep power available 99% of the time.

All members pay this service charge to help cover fixed costs, allowing us to provide service even before electricity is needed.

Think of the service charge like property taxes, which fund roads and safety services. Even if you’re away from home, you still owe property taxes because local governments maintain those services.

This service charge is essential for keeping our finances stable and investing in reliable power for the future.

This is not directly a Midwest Electric charge; it reflects changes in the cost we have to pay for the generation and transmission of electricity. This includes the cost of fuels to generate electricity; high voltage transmission to move the electricity from the generating plant to our local substation; and peak demand costs when electric use is high for all members. You can lower this charge through energy efficiency measures, including our energy audits. You can also help us manage this charge by joining our load management program.

Participating Community Connection Fund members opt to “round up” their electric bill to the next highest dollar, with those pennies going to our Community Conncetion trust fund. This spare change is allocated quarterly and donated to local charitable causes such as fire departments, food pantries, libraries, playgrounds, and more. NO administrative fees are taken. A separate board of Midwest members reviews applications and makes fund decisions. It’s truly our “neighbors helping neighbors” co-op philosophy in action.

We also include a snapshot of your electric usage history and the average temperature with each bill so you can compare the current month’s use to the last month and the same month of the year prior. We hope this will help members understand why their bills increased or decreased, as they can analyze what they did differently in their homes each month (and see how weather impacts their bill.).

You can get a more detailed electric use history, including your daily and hourly use history, by logging into your SmartHub account or mobile app.

To account for the cost of meeting demand, Midwest implemented a demand charge to the residential billing structure in September of 2023. Residential members who use more than 20 kWh in one hour (about 5% of members) will receive a $20 charge on their bill. This will not affect your bill if you have normal usage. (The average residential member uses a demand of about 7 kWh.) It may affect those with very high demand from grain dryers, pool heaters, electric vehicle chargers, etc.

The demand charge is determined based on the highest demand recorded every hour. This charge is added to the member’s bill alongside the Service Availability charge. These charges reflect the cooperative’s costs for infrastructure upgrades, capacity planning, and ensuring reliable service during peak demand periods.

The implementation of residential demand billing encourages members to manage and reduce their demand, leading to more efficient energy consumption patterns. By doing so, customers can effectively control their electricity costs and contribute to the overall stability and efficiency of the cooperative’s electrical system.

You can get a more detailed electric use history, including your daily and hourly use history, by logging into your SmartHub account or mobile app.

Have questions? Call 419-394-4110. Let us help you understand the bill you receive each month.