DTE Discounted Rates
DTE offers discounted rates for electricity that goes to charging your electric vehicle at home, and that’s a big deal! Depending on your driving habits, charging your electric vehicle at home could increase your energy consumption by about 25-35%. That means that saving money charging your car could add up to some big savings!
How much could I save?
That’s a tough question to answer because it depends on a lot of factors, but here is a rough idea.
The average American home uses about 30 kWh per day of electricity. Depending on your driving habits and specific vehicle, your electric car could use about 10 kWh to get you around. That means you’ll be increasing your daily electricity use by about 33%, imagine your bill going up by 33%!
Now, if you charge with DTE’s specific rates (more on that later) you’ll be able to get the electricity by approximately half the cost of the electricity for the rest of the house! Again, that is an approximation and depends on your specific situation, but it should give you an idea of how much you can save!
What are the rates?
DTE sets up their electric vehicle charging rates base on what is called Time of Use. That means the rate you pay depends on when during the day you charge your vehicle.
If you charge your vehicle ‘on-peak’ you’ll pay 15.902 cents per kWh. ‘On-peak’ is Monday-Friday 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., basically when everyone else wants to use power too. That’s pretty expensive, considering DTE’s standard rate is 7.252 cents per kWh.
But, if you charge ‘off-peak’ (all other times of the week that are not ‘on-peak’) you’ll pay just 3.976 cents per kWh. You’ll notice that is just a little more than half of the standard rate mentioned above. This may sound like you’ll have to pay attention a lot, but most electric vehicles (and some EV chargers) have scheduling tools built in. That way, you can schedule your charging to start after 11 p.m. and stop before 9 a.m., keeping you within that ‘off-peak’ and discounted rate.
Note: there are also delivery chargers and other fees involved with DTE’s specific rates for electric vehicles AND for their standard rate. They were omitted here for simplicity.
DTE also offers a flat rate where you pay $45.43/vehicle per month. This works best if you drive a lot and don’t want to worry about when you charge.
Is it hard to setup?
It is not the most simple process, but it really is not very complicated either. Basically, DTE needs to setup another meter at your house specific to the electric vehicle charger. That way, they can measure how much you use just for the charging and how much you use for the rest of your house.
To do that, you’ll need an electrician. You need an electrician to setup your car charger in the first place, so when they’re installing the charger they can add the separate wiring for the meter.
Then, DTE will come to your house and install a new meter in the spot created by the electrician and activate your service!
What else?
We realize this process can be somewhat complicated, especially with all the rates and terms involved. That’s why we offer all of our customers an analysis of their current electricity usage and if getting a specific rate for your electric car is right for you. When you order a charger + installation package from us, we’ll help you out with figuring out the details about getting the specific rate from DTE.
If you want more details about the DTE rates, you can see their website here.