Barron Electric Coop electricity rates

It is a smaller system, serving 19,266 residential customers, which means its fixed costs are spread across a narrow base. At 15.72¢ per kilowatt-hour it is one of the cheaper places to buy electricity in Wisconsin, 20.4% under the statewide average of 19.74¢.

Consumption is close to the national norm at 826 kilowatt-hours a month against 871, so the rate translates fairly directly into the bill.

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 Barron Electric Coop customer went 275 minutes without electricity across 1.98 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.

Barron Electric Coop offers time-of-use pricing to residential customers. 1 households were enrolled, about 0.1% 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.

184 residential customers had net-metered solar in 2024, totalling 2.01 megawatts. That works out to 9.6 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.