PECO’s residential TOU rate charges 42¢/kWh during a 4-hour afternoon window and just 15.6¢/kWh overnight, a gap wider than SDG&E’s and rivaled only by SCE and Con Edison’s peak rate among the utilities on this list. The schedule itself, unlike most others here, doesn’t change with the season at all.
PECO's TOU rate has one of the biggest peak/off-peak gaps on the East Coast. Look up the exact hours for your plan.
See my peak hours →Residential Service (R) - TOU
One schedule, all year, three pricing tiers.
| Period | Hours | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Peak | 2–6pm, every day | 42.0¢/kWh |
| Mid-peak | 6am–2pm and 6pm–midnight | 17.6¢/kWh |
| Off-peak | Midnight–6am | 15.6¢/kWh |
The peak window is short, just four hours, but the rate inside it is the highest single number of any non-California, non-Con-Edison utility on this list. Mid-peak and off-peak sit fairly close together (17.6¢ vs 15.6¢), so the real financial decision isn’t “day vs. night,” it’s specifically “2–6pm vs. everything else.”
What Shifting Is Worth, in Dollars
Take an afternoon load: dishwasher and laundry, about 4 kWh, run inside the 2–6pm peak window.
At peak: 4 kWh × $0.420 = $1.68 Same load shifted to mid-peak (say, 7pm): 4 kWh × $0.176 = $0.70
That’s $0.98 saved per shifted routine, a 58% cut, just by moving two or three hours later in the day. Pushing it further into the true overnight off-peak window (midnight-6am) saves a bit more: 4 kWh × $0.156 = $0.62, for a total savings of $1.06. Over 200 days a year, consistently avoiding the 2–6pm window is worth roughly $196–212/year from one daily routine.
Four Hours Is a Small Ask for a Big Number
Because the peak window is only four hours, this is one of the easier TOU rates on this list to plan around. You don’t need to restructure your whole evening, delaying a load past 6pm captures most of the benefit, and the exact same math applies every day of the year with no seasonal exceptions to track.
Should You Switch to R-TOU?
The size of the gap here means even modest shifting produces a real number. Households with school-age kids who need dinner and homework attention right in the 2–6pm window are the ones who’ll struggle most; anyone with a flexible afternoon, working from home with a break later, retirees, or households where the after-school routine can be pushed to early evening, should see a clear win.
For more ways to cut the bill beyond the rate plan itself, see how to lower your electric bill.
I can run your last 12 months of PECO usage against the standard rate and R-TOU and tell you which one actually costs less for how you live.
Find my best PECO plan →For a broader diagnosis of what’s driving a high bill in the first place, see why is my electric bill so high.
Dana Whitmore
Energy Engineer & Billing Analyst · Optiwatt Energy Advisor
Dana has spent the past three years analyzing residential electricity billing data across PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E service territories. She's reviewed billing records for thousands of California households, and built the simulation engine that powers this site's rate-plan comparisons. She holds a degree in Electrical Engineering and lives in the Bay Area.