A guide to understanding your electric bill

Have you ever looked at your elec­tric bill and won­dered, “What does all this mean?” As a not-for-prof­it elec­tric coop­er­a­tive, Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive exists for the sole pur­pose of serv­ing its mem­bers. So, while there may be no hid­den fees for gen­er­at­ing prof­its, deci­pher­ing your bill may still be a bit con­fus­ing.

We’ve labeled the indi­vid­ual parts for you in this arti­cle, but some terms may seem unfa­mil­iar, such as “rate,” along with some of the “charges” and “adjust­ments” that we’d like to define.

Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive offers sev­er­al dif­fer­ent rate sched­ules to best suit mem­bers’ needs. Most mem­bers are on our stan­dard res­i­den­tial rate, while some take advan­tage of our time-of-use, indus­tri­al or gen­er­al ser­vice rates. You can find out more about the rates we offer on our web­site under the “Your Ser­vice” tab.

Under “Read­ings” on the back of your bill, you’ll see a num­ber for “pre­vi­ous” and “present.” If you sub­tract the pre­vi­ous meter read­ing num­ber from the present meter read­ing, it will equal how many kilo­watt-hours you used for the billing peri­od. If you are sub­scribed to Coop­er­a­tive Solar, fac­tor in what is list­ed under the solar line’s kWh use, and that num­ber is what you are charged for kWh used in the col­umn below. “Ener­gy Charge” shows the num­ber of kWh used at the rate charged (the 0.1079 you see means 10.79 cents per kWh for mem­bers on our stan­dard res­i­den­tial rate).

So, what are these charges list­ed?

You’ll see the Facil­i­ties Charge list­ed first. The Facil­i­ties Charge recov­ers the cost of ser­vices that does not vary with the amount of elec­tric­i­ty you use. Even before you use one kWh of elec­tric­i­ty, it costs mon­ey to bring pow­er to your home or busi­ness, and that cost is shared equal­ly among all Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive mem­bers. Togeth­er, everyone’s facil­i­ties charge cov­ers right-of-way main­te­nance, equip­ment like poles and lines, inter￾est, depre­ci­a­tion, insur­ance and labor. Those costs don’t change based on how much elec­tric­i­ty you use. That’s why the $33 facil­i­ties charge is the same every month.

Under the Ener­gy Charge, which is based on how much elec­tric­i­ty you used, is the Pow­er Cost Adjust­ment. It can be either a charge or a cred­it. Because the cost of gen­er­at­ing elec­tric­i­ty varies (usu­al­ly frac­tions of a cent) and is influ­enced by changes in fuel costs, how much of each fuel is used dur­ing that peri­od and whole­sale mar­ket prices for elec­tric­i­ty, the Pow­er Cost Adjust­ment helps track the actu­al cost of pro­duc­ing elec­tric­i­ty with­out over col­lect­ing or under col­lect­ing rev­enue from mem­bers.

If you pay Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive for out­door light­ing or Surge Guard pro­tec­tion, those charges will also appear in this sec­tion of your bill.

Next, you’ll see charges for state, local and, if applic­a­ble, fran­chise tax. These are tax­es Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive is required by law to col­lect in the form of state and local sales tax­es, as well as the fran­chise tax­es cer­tain cities impose on the sale of elec­tric­i­ty in their city to homes and busi­ness­es.

Final­ly, mem­bers who par­tic­i­pate in Oper­a­tion Round Up will see less than a dol­lar deb­it for “Oper­a­tion Round Up Con­tri­bu­tion.” Oper­a­tion Round Up is a vol­un­tary pro­gram through which Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive mem­bers allow their elec­tric bills to be round­ed up to the next dol­lar each month, and those donat­ed amounts are invest­ed back into the com­mu­ni­ty through the Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Foun­da­tion. Par­tic­i­pat­ing in Oper­a­tion Round Up totals around $6 a year for each mem­ber, on aver­age. The foundation’s mis­sion is to help meet food, health, safe­ty, edu­ca­tion and shel­ter needs of res­i­dents in coun­ties served by Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive.

Now that you’ve reviewed this break­down of your bill, if you have ques­tions, please reach out to Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, and we’ll be glad to help! We’re here to serve you, our mem­bers. You can also find more infor­ma­tion on our web­site under “Billing & Pay­ments.”