Stearns Cooperative Elec Assn electricity rates

It is a smaller system, serving 26,138 residential customers, which means its fixed costs are spread across a narrow base. At 13.88¢ per kilowatt-hour it is one of the cheaper places to buy electricity in Minnesota, 18.1% under the statewide average of 16.95¢.

Consumption here is high, 1,204 kilowatt-hours a month against a national average of 871. Long cooling seasons, large detached homes and electric resistance heating are the usual causes, and together they matter more to the bill than 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 Stearns Cooperative Elec Assn customer went 133 minutes without electricity across 0.82 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.

204 residential customers had net-metered solar in 2024, totalling 2.88 megawatts. That works out to 7.8 installations per thousand customers, against a median of 8 across the utilities reporting it.

Adoption is below the national median. A low retail rate reduces what solar displaces, and export compensation set at avoided cost rather than the retail rate reduces it further. What exports are actually worth.