Intech Blog

Xcel's New Time-of-Use Rates: Is Your Panel Ready?

Published August 24, 2026 · Intech Corporation · Twin Cities, MN

Xcel Energy's new Time-of-Use rate charges roughly 7.5 cents per kilowatt-hour overnight and jumps to aboutcents during summer evening peak hours, compared to a flat rate that stays nearcents year-round. It's optional, and it can save you real money if you can move your laundry, dishwasher, and EV charging to the middle of the night. What most of the coverage on this rate leaves out is the electrical side: cramming your AC, dryer, water heater, and EV charger into the same six-hour window puts more simultaneous demand on your panel than most homes were wired for a generation ago.

The rollout has been a few years in the making. Xcel originally wanted Time-of-Use to be the default for Minnesota customers, automatically enrolling everyone unless they opted out. After pushback from Attorney General Keith Ellison's office and consumer advocates who said an early pilot produced only modest results, the utility scaled the plan back to a voluntary, opt-in program instead. It's been rolling out throughas Xcel finishes installing smart meters across its Minnesota territory, and customers get advance notice before they're offered enrollment.

For a lot of households, the pitch is straightforward: park your EV charger, dishwasher, and washing machine on delay-start settings, run them after midnight, and pocket the difference. One St. Paul family told the Star Tribune they cut about a thousand dollars off their bill over six months doing exactly that on a similar plan. But shifting five or six major appliances into a narrow overnight window is a different animal electrically than running them spread out across the day, and that's the part worth thinking through before you sign up.

How the new rate actually breaks down

Under Xcel's plan, off-peak hours run from midnight toa.m. and price out around 7.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. On-peak hours aretop.m. on non-holiday weekdays, and that's where the rate jumps hard, to roughlycents in summer and aroundcents in winter. Everything outside those windows bills closer to the standard flat rate, which itself sits nearcents in summer andcents in winter. On paper, on-peak costs run about 2.7 times higher than off-peak in summer and 2.2 times higher in winter.

It's still entirely optional. You'll get notice before you're offered enrollment, and if you sign up and it doesn't work for your household, you can drop back to the flat rate. Xcel also offers online tools that let you model your own bill under each plan before committing, which is worth doing before you rearrange your whole schedule around a rate you haven't tested.

Who this actually saves money for

This rate rewards a specific kind of household: one that can genuinely move its biggest loads to the dead of night. If you're charging an EV, running a heat pump water heater, or doing laundry on a schedule, Time-of-Use can put real money back in your pocket. If you're home during the day, run your AC hard in the evening when everyone gets home from work, or can't control when a home business or medical equipment draws power, you could end up paying more, not less, especially on hot summer evenings when that 6-to-9 window hits hardest.

There's also a separate winter rate for homes heated with electricity, including heat pumps and baseboard heat, that offers a flat discounted price during the cold months regardless of time of day. That one stacks differently than the standard Time-of-Use rate, so it's worth sorting out which combination actually fits your house instead of assuming one plan covers everything.

The electrical math nobody's talking about

Here's the catch that a rate plan can't fix: your panel doesn't know what time it is. If the whole idea is to run your dryer, dishwasher, EV charger, and maybe a heat pump water heater all between midnight anda.m. to chase the cheap rate, you're stacking loads that used to be spread across the day into one tight window. On a lot of older Twin Cities homes still running 100-amp service, that's a real capacity question, not just a scheduling one.

We see this play out most with EV chargers. Aor 50-amp Levelcharger pulling power ata.m. alongside an electric dryer and a water heater recovery cycle can push a tired panel closer to its limit than most homeowners realize, especially once you add smart plugs and delay-start timers that all fire off around the same overnight window. Before you build your household schedule around chasing off-peak pricing, it's worth having someone look at your panel's actual capacity rather than finding out the hard way when a breaker starts tripping ata.m.

Where solar and battery storage change the picture

If you've got solar panels, Time-of-Use rates shift the math again. Daytime solar production doesn't line up with the cheapest off-peak window, since that's already the middle of the night, but pairing solar with battery storage lets you store cheap overnight power or midday solar output and draw it down during the expensive evening peak instead of buying grid power atcents a kilowatt-hour. That's a fundamentally different strategy than just running your dryer ata.m., and it's worth a real conversation with someone who installs solar and storage systems if you're already considering it.

A few practical, safe steps before you enroll

None of this requires anything risky on your end. A few things you can reasonably check or ask about before switching plans:

• Pull up your usage history through Xcel's online account tools to see when you actually draw the most power, rather than guessing.
• Count how many major appliances you'd realistically be running overnight at the same time, not just one or two.
• Ask an electrician for a load evaluation if your home has an older 100-amp panel and you're adding an EV charger or heat pump into the mix.
• Use built-in delay-start settings on appliances rather than cheap plug-in timers on high-draw circuits like dryers or water heaters.
• Watch for breakers that already run warm or trip occasionally during normal use, since that's a sign your panel is closer to its limit than it should be.

When it's time to call an electrician

If you're already planning an EV charger, a heat pump, or a home battery system to take advantage of the new pricing, that's the right moment to have your panel and circuits evaluated before, not after, you commit to a schedule that leans on all of them running at once overnight. A quick capacity check now is a lot cheaper than dealing with a tripped main breaker or a scorched connection later. If you're just trying to figure out whether your current setup can handle a shifted schedule without any new equipment, that's a good fit for a straightforward electrical inspection too.