Black River Electric Coop, Inc electricity rates

It is a smaller system, serving 30,610 residential customers, which means its fixed costs are spread across a narrow base. At 13.47¢ per kilowatt-hour it is one of the cheaper places to buy electricity in South Carolina, 16.7% under the statewide average of 16.18¢.

Consumption here is high, 1,258 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 Black River Electric Coop, Inc customer went 228 minutes without electricity across 2 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.

450 residential customers had net-metered solar in 2024, totalling 3.64 megawatts. That works out to 14.7 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.