Black Hills Electric Coop, Inc electricity rates

It is a smaller system, serving 9,227 residential customers, which means its fixed costs are spread across a narrow base. Its 14.76¢ per kilowatt-hour sits 6.2% below the South Dakota average of 15.73¢.

Its customers use more electricity than the national norm, 1,109 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 Black Hills Electric Coop, Inc customer went 229 minutes without electricity across 1.03 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.

Black Hills Electric Coop, Inc offers time-of-use pricing to residential customers. 6,149 households were enrolled, about 66.6% 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.

79 residential customers had net-metered solar in 2024, totalling 1.33 megawatts. That works out to 8.6 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.