Easley Combined Utility System electricity rates

It is a smaller system, serving 15,772 residential customers, which means its fixed costs are spread across a narrow base. At 12.81¢ per kilowatt-hour it is one of the cheaper places to buy electricity in South Carolina, 20.8% under the statewide average of 16.18¢.

Its customers use more electricity than the national norm, 975 kilowatt-hours a month against 871, which amplifies whatever the rate does.

Owned by the city it serves and governed by a local board rather than the state commission. No shareholder return is built into the rate. 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 Easley Combined Utility System customer went 725 minutes without electricity across 1.51 interruptions. The median across the 941 utilities that report this is 185 minutes.

That is far worse than typical, and figures at this level almost always reflect a major storm season rather than everyday performance. A single hurricane or ice storm can dominate the annual number.

Easley Combined Utility System offers time-of-use pricing to residential customers. 105 households were enrolled, about 0.7% of its residential base.

These plans are opt-in almost everywhere. They reward households that can move laundry, dishwashing, water heating or electric vehicle charging out of the late-afternoon peak, and they cost more than the standard rate for households that cannot. How to tell which group you are in.

105 residential customers had net-metered solar in 2024, totalling 0.69 megawatts. That works out to 6.7 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.