Xcel's "Time of Use" energy rates

Electric utilities are rightly concerned about peak electrical usage, and they spend some effort trying to smooth daily peaks and filling nighttime valleys.

In the 70's Colorado Public Service introduced "off-peak" rates, later called "Time-of-day" rates. This rate schedule was recently discontinued for lack of interest. Coincidentally, they recently offered a new pilot program called "time-of-use" pricing that also aims at that target. Once again, they have developed a rate structure that is too hard to understand and therefore too hard to take advantage of.