Menard Electric Coop electricity rates

It is a smaller system, serving 9,048 residential customers, which means its fixed costs are spread across a narrow base. At 18.05¢ per kilowatt-hour it is one of the cheaper places to buy electricity in Illinois, 24.3% under the statewide average of 23.85¢.

Its customers use more electricity than the national norm, 987 kilowatt-hours a month against 871, which amplifies whatever the rate does.

Owned by the customers it serves, with directors elected by members. Co-ops are frequently outside state rate regulation. That matters because a bill is not only the cost of generating electricity: it also carries the cost of the network, and who owns that network changes how it is paid for.

In 2024 the average Menard Electric Coop customer went 169 minutes without electricity across 1.49 interruptions. The median across the 941 utilities that report this is 185 minutes.

That is better than the typical American utility, though the figure includes major storm days and can move sharply from one year to the next.

258 residential customers had net-metered solar in 2024, totalling 2.5 megawatts. That works out to 28.5 installations per thousand customers, against a median of 8 across the utilities reporting it.

Adoption is above the national median, which generally tracks the retail rate more closely than it tracks sunshine. What exports are actually worth.