Montana-Dakota Utilities Co electricity rates

It is a smaller system, serving 19,616 residential customers, which means its fixed costs are spread across a narrow base. At 12.89¢ per kilowatt-hour it is one of the cheaper places to buy electricity in Montana, 12.1% under the statewide average of 14.67¢.

Consumption here is below the national norm at 760 kilowatt-hours a month against 871, which softens the effect of the rate on the final bill.

A shareholder-owned company whose rates are set by the state regulator, including an approved return on the capital it has invested. 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 Montana-Dakota Utilities Co customer went 360 minutes without electricity across 1.95 interruptions. The median across the 941 utilities that report this is 185 minutes.

That is worse than typical. Overhead lines through wooded or storm-exposed terrain are the usual explanation, and the fix is vegetation management and circuit automation, both of which are recovered through rates.

15 residential customers had net-metered solar in 2024, totalling 0.12 megawatts. That works out to 0.8 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.