On SCE’s TOU-D-PRIME plan, a summer weekday kWh at 5pm costs 59¢. The same kWh at 11pm costs 26¢. That’s not a rounding difference. That’s more than double, for electrons that are identical in every way except the clock.
Most SCE customers know their bill is high. Far fewer know that a big piece of the number is just about when the meter was running, not how much power was used overall.
Peak windows and rates change by plan and by season on SCE. Look up the exact hours for your plan.
See my peak hours →SCE’s Three Residential TOU Plans (2026 Rates)
SCE runs three time-of-use plans side by side. They share the same basic idea, price goes up during a defined afternoon/evening window, but the window and the spread are different enough that picking the wrong one costs real money.
TOU-D 4-9PM
This is the plan most SCE customers land on by default.
| Period | Summer | Winter |
|---|---|---|
| On-peak (4–9pm daily) | 58¢/kWh | 51¢/kWh |
| Mid-peak | 46¢/kWh | 51¢/kWh |
| Off-peak | 34¢/kWh | 37¢/kWh |
| Super off-peak (8am–3pm weekdays, winter only) | 34¢/kWh | 33¢/kWh |
TOU-D 4-9PM also carries a baseline credit: usage up to SCE’s daily baseline allowance (16.9 kWh/day in summer, 12.0 kWh/day in winter for Region 9) gets a 10¢/kWh credit, which softens the off-peak rate further for households that stay near or under baseline.
TOU-D-PRIME
The widest peak/off-peak spread of the three, and the plan with the most upside if you can actually shift load.
| Period | Summer weekday | Summer weekend | Winter (all days) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peak (4–9pm) | 59¢/kWh | 40¢/kWh | 56¢/kWh |
| Off-peak | 26¢/kWh | 26¢/kWh | 24¢/kWh |
No baseline credit on this plan, the whole savings case rests on the peak/off-peak gap itself. A 59¢ to 26¢ spread means shifting a load out of the evening cuts its cost by more than half.
Eligibility: SCE requires self-certifying ownership or lease of an EV, PHEV, residential battery, or electric heat pump (water or space heating). SCE does not verify this against DMV records, it’s an honor-system check, but it’s there because the plan’s whole design assumes you have something that can soak up cheap off-peak power.
TOU-D 5-8PM
A narrower peak window, useful if your household’s heavy usage clusters right after work and clears out by 8pm.
| Period | Summer weekday | Summer weekend | Winter (all days) |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-peak (5–8pm) | 74¢/kWh | 54¢/kWh | 60¢/kWh |
| Mid-peak | 54¢/kWh | 54¢/kWh | 60¢/kWh |
| Off-peak | 34¢/kWh | 34¢/kWh | 38¢/kWh |
| Super off-peak (winter, 8am-3pm weekdays) | 34¢/kWh | 34¢/kWh | 32¢/kWh |
The 74¢/kWh summer on-peak rate is the highest single number on any of the three plans. If your evenings are genuinely done by 8pm, the narrower window can still beat TOU-D 4-9PM. If they run past 8, this plan gets expensive fast.
What Shifting Is Actually Worth
Take a typical evening load on TOU-D-PRIME in summer: dishwasher (1.2 kWh), a laundry cycle (1.8 kWh), cooking (1 kWh), TV and devices (1 kWh), all inside the 4–9pm window.
At peak: 5 kWh × 59¢ = $2.95 Same load after 9pm: 5 kWh × 26¢ = $1.30
That’s $1.65 saved on one evening’s routine. Run that pattern on 180 weeknights a year and it’s about $297/year from a single habit, delaying the dishwasher and washer, not using less electricity overall.
Habits That Actually Move the Needle on SCE
Delay-start the dishwasher and washer. Nearly every modern unit has a delay-start button. Set it for 9pm or later and this becomes a one-time setup, not an ongoing decision.
Pre-cool before 4pm on hot days. Southern California’s inland and valley climate zones make air conditioning the single biggest peak-window load. Cooling the house to 70°F before 4pm and letting it drift to 78°F during the peak window uses the building’s thermal mass instead of the compressor during the expensive hours.
Charge EVs after 9pm, not “overnight” loosely defined. On TOU-D-PRIME specifically, the off-peak rate applies the moment the clock passes 9pm, not at some vague late-night hour. Setting a charge start time of 9:01pm instead of letting the car decide on its own captures the full rate difference every night.
Move pool pump runtime off the afternoon. Pool pumps on a daytime timer are one of the most common accidental peak-hour loads in SCE territory. Running the pump from 1–7am instead of noon–6pm avoids the peak window entirely without changing total runtime.
Should You Actually Switch to TOU-D-PRIME?
TOU-D-PRIME is the highest-savings plan on paper, but only for households that meet its eligibility bar and can genuinely shift load. If you don’t have an EV, battery, or heat pump, self-certifying to get on the plan without a real ability to use cheap off-peak power just means you’re paying a higher peak rate with no offsetting off-peak advantage over TOU-D 4-9PM’s baseline-credit structure.
The honest test is your own interval data, not a general rule. A household that’s home and cooking dinner at 6pm every night with no EV and no flexibility will often do better on the standard tiered Schedule D than on any TOU plan. Related reading: why SCE bills run so high in the first place covers the fixed-cost and wildfire-liability side of the bill that no rate plan switch fixes.
I can run your last 12 months of SCE usage against TOU-D-PRIME, TOU-D 4-9PM, TOU-D 5-8PM, and Tiered Schedule D, and tell you which one actually costs less for how you live.
Find my best SCE plan →For the bigger picture on cutting the bill beyond the rate plan itself, see how to lower your electric bill.
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.