By Ben Holsen, Holsen Solar & Electrical
I install solar and battery systems for a living. I talk to farmers, business owners, and homeowners every week about energy costs, rate structures, and whether storage makes financial sense. I run the numbers constantly.
And yet, when I actually sat down and dug into my own home's energy data, I found things that surprised me.
The Question
Like most Xcel Energy customers in Fargo, I was on the standard flat rate. You use electricity, you get a bill, you pay it. Simple enough. But I kept hearing about the Time-of-Day (TOD) rate and couldn't help wondering: is it actually better for someone like me? Should I switch?
Lucky for me, I had installed an Emporia home energy monitoring system two years prior — one that tracks every circuit in my house individually. I had the data to actually figure this out.
The concept is straightforward. On TOD, electricity costs more during "on-peak" hours — weekdays from 9AM to 9PM — and significantly less at all other times. Here's what that looks like:
Winter (October–May):
- On-peak: 12.8¢/kWh
- Off-peak: 3.45¢/kWh
Summer (June–September):
- On-peak: 17.1¢/kWh
- Off-peak: 3.45¢/kWh
If you can shift your heavy loads to off-peak hours, the savings are real. If you can't — or don't know when your loads are running — you could end up paying more than you do on a flat rate.
That's the problem. Most people have no idea what's running in their house or when. You can guess — but what if you're wrong? Having the data makes the case.
Running the Numbers Before Switching
I exported nearly a year of Emporia data to AI — June 2025 through April 2026 — and started asking questions. For the pre-switch comparison, I focused on November and December 2025, the last two full months I was on the flat rate.
The results were clear:
November 2025 — 2,413 kWh total, 33.5% on-peak
- Flat rate energy charge: $167.69
- TOD energy charge: $158.77
- TOD saves $8.92
December 2025 — 3,044 kWh total, 26.7% on-peak
- Flat rate energy charge: $211.52
- TOD energy charge: $181.05
- TOD saves $30.47
Even without changing a single behavior — no EV scheduling, no shifting laundry, nothing — TOD was already the better rate. The reason is simple: about 70% of my usage was already happening off-peak naturally. Night owls, overnight EV charging, running appliances in the morning — all of it was landing in cheap hours without me trying.
I switched to TOD and started watching the data. Over my first full billing period — February 17 to March 18 — Xcel confirmed:
- 2,178 kWh total
- 447 kWh on-peak (20.5%)
- 1,731 kWh off-peak
My Emporia read 2,248 kWh — about 3.2% high, normal for CT-based monitoring. The on-peak/off-peak split matched almost exactly. The switch was confirmed. Now I started asking harder questions.
The Truck Was Costing Me More Than It Should
I drive a 2022 Rivian R1T. It's my daily driver and I love it, but charging a large EV battery is not free — and when you charge matters enormously on a TOD rate.
When I looked at my summer 2025 data (June–September), I found that my EV circuit was pulling 1,022 kWh during on-peak hours across the summer — about 11.6 kWh per weekday afternoon and evening.
The hourly breakdown told the story clearly. The truck was almost never charging before 4PM, but from 4PM onward the charging picked up steadily, with the 8PM hour being the single heaviest charging hour of the day. But my truck was also plugged in until fully charged — meaning it wasn't going anywhere overnight anyway. I was getting home from work, plugging in, and the truck was immediately starting to charge right in the thick of on-peak rates, for no reason.
The fix? Schedule the truck to start charging at 9PM. Five minutes in the Rivian app.
Here's what that one change does to my annual EV charging cost:
| Year | Rate Structure | Annual EV Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Last year | Flat rate (seasonal avg) | $1,618 |
| This year | TOD, actual mixed period | $1,339 |
| Next year | TOD + 9PM scheduler | $1,074 |
Total savings versus last year: $544/year. Cost to implement: $0.
For context, the Rivian uses roughly 13,840 kWh per year to cover an estimated 29,000+ miles. At next year's projected cost of $1,074, that works out to about 2.5 cents per mile. A comparable gas truck getting 18 MPG at today's Fargo price of $3.45/gallon would cost $5,558 in fuel to cover the same distance — about 19 cents per mile. The Rivian runs for about 13% of that — and most of the remaining gap was sitting in rate structure inefficiency that's now been eliminated.
None of this required solar or a battery — just knowing what the data showed and spending five minutes on a charge schedule. But getting to that point required having the data in the first place.
That starts with a home energy monitor. Circuit-level monitoring — the kind that shows you what every breaker in your house is doing, hour by hour — is what made all of this possible. Without it, I'd still be looking at a monthly total on a utility bill and guessing.
If you're on a Time-of-Day rate, considering the switch, or just curious what's actually driving your electric bill, we can help. We install home energy monitoring systems and can walk you through what your data means.
Contact Holsen Solar & Electrical — let's find out what your data says.
The Hidden Advantage Nobody Talks About
There's a broader point worth making here about EVs and fuel cost stability. Gas in Fargo is running about $3.45/gallon today — but anyone who's been paying attention knows that number moves constantly. The national average swung from $1.84/gallon in April 2020 to $4.99/gallon in June 2022, a difference of over $3 in less than two years.
My electricity rate, by contrast, is boring in the best possible way. It goes up a few percent a year — predictably, on a schedule, with public notice. It doesn't spike 170% in 18 months because of a war, a refinery outage, or a bad quarter for OPEC. When I calculate my EV charging cost for next year, I can actually trust that number. That's not something any gas truck owner can say.
The Takeaway
I got into solar and electrical work because I believe in giving people real, honest answers about their energy. The TOD rate structure rewards people who pay attention — and penalizes those who don't.
I switched to TOD. I dug into my data. I found $544 per year in savings that cost me nothing to capture, and learned more about my home's energy profile in an afternoon than I had in years of just reading the bill.
If you drive an EV and you're on a flat rate, this is worth a look. The math may already be in your favor — you just need the data to see it.
Part 2 of this series looks at what else my home energy data revealed — including a battery ROI deep dive, an all-day dryer marathon, and what this kind of analysis means for farms and commercial buildings.
Ben Holsen is the owner of Holsen Solar & Electrical, a licensed electrical contracting company based in Fargo, ND, specializing in solar installations, battery storage, and electrical work for residential, agricultural, and commercial customers.