Off Peak Electricity Prices: A 2026 Guide
Ontario's regulated off-peak electricity price climbed from 6.3¢/kWh on Nov. 1, 2012 to 9.8¢/kWh on Nov. 1, 2025, a documented increase of about 55.6% on the Ontario Energy Board's historical rate table. That single fact should reset how property owners think about electricity. Off peak electricity prices are not a fixed background detail, they're a moving tariff that can change building economics, tenant billing, and net operating income.
For multi-family and commercial portfolios, the issue isn't whether off-peak exists. It's whether your building can see and control when power is used. If you're still treating electricity as one blended monthly expense, you're leaving the biggest savings window unmeasured.
Table of Contents
- Why Off Peak Electricity Prices Matter for Property Portfolios
- Understanding Time of Use Rate Structures
- How Off Peak Rates Vary Across Jurisdictions
- The Financial Impact on Multi Family and Commercial Properties
- How Submetering Supports Off-Peak Cost Recovery
- Load Shifting Strategies and Tenant Billing Design
- Jurisdictional Compliance and Implementation Considerations
Why Off Peak Electricity Prices Matter for Property Portfolios
Ontario's current TOU spread makes the opportunity plain. On Nov. 1, 2025, the Ontario Energy Board lists 9.8¢/kWh off-peak, 15.7¢/kWh mid-peak, and 20.3¢/kWh on-peak for the standard plan, while Ultra-Low Overnight drops to 3.9¢/kWh from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and rises to 39.1¢/kWh on-peak from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays (Ontario Energy Board electricity rates). That's a 35.2¢/kWh spread between the cheapest overnight energy and the most expensive peak window. For a property owner, that's not a trivia point, it's a cost allocation problem.
The money is in the marginal kilowatt-hour
A building doesn't save money because electricity is cheaper in general. It saves money when specific loads move out of the expensive hours. Common-area lighting, EV charging, laundry, make-up air systems, and controllable HVAC are all candidates, but only if someone can see when they run.
Practical rule: if you can't tie a kilowatt-hour to a time window, you can't manage it.
That's why bulk metering is such a blunt instrument. The owner absorbs the whole bill, tenants have little reason to change behaviour, and common-area consumption gets buried in the noise. Off-peak pricing only becomes financially meaningful when the property can separate what happened at 2 p.m. from what happened at 2 a.m.
Why portfolio owners should care now
The price history matters because it proves the tariff is not static. Ontario's off-peak rate moved from 7.6¢/kWh on Nov. 1, 2024 to 9.8¢/kWh on Nov. 1, 2025, a 2.2 cent increase, or roughly 28.9% in one year (Ontario Energy Board historical electricity rates). If your submetering model or operating budget assumes yesterday's tariff never changes, your recovery numbers drift fast.
The takeaway is simple. Treat off-peak pricing as a live variable, not a discount label. The buildings that win are the ones that can measure, allocate, and act on the rate difference instead of hoping tenants will do the right thing on their own.
Understanding Time of Use Rate Structures
TOU pricing works the way ride-sharing surge pricing works, except it's tied to the grid instead of the road network. When demand is high, the price goes up. When demand is low, the price falls. That's the basic logic behind peak, mid-peak, and off-peak periods, and it's why “cheap electricity at night” is only a rough rule of thumb.
Read the tariff, not the folklore
Ontario's standard TOU structure shows how this works in practice. The OEB says off-peak hours run 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. on weekdays, plus weekends and holidays all day in winter, and the historical series has tracked TOU prices since 2006 (Ontario Energy Board electricity rates). That means the clock matters, but so does the season. A building that scripts its controls to a single overnight rule can easily misread the tariff.
Off-peak is not the same thing as “after hours.” In some tariffs, it includes weekends and holidays. In others, it doesn't. In shoulder seasons, some tariffs remove peak periods entirely, which changes what “cheap” even means for a managed building.
Use the right lens for building operations
A property manager needs to think in tariff blocks, not just in clocks. If a laundry room runs during an off-peak block, that's good. If it starts during a mid-peak block and continues into the highest-cost window, that's a billing problem disguised as normal operations. The same is true for cooling, ventilation, and EV charging.
The right question isn't “What time is it?” It's “What rate applies right now?”
For Ontario property teams, the practical habit is to keep the tariff schedule next to the operating schedule. For anyone comparing billing logic across utilities, the guide on time-of-use hydro concepts is a useful reminder that utility timing rules drive cost, not the other way around.
How Off Peak Rates Vary Across Jurisdictions
The mistake is assuming off-peak means the same thing everywhere. It doesn't. Ontario uses a regulated TOU schedule. California utilities use plan-specific structures. New York's Con Edison has its own rate spread. If you manage property in more than one market, you need a tariff-by-tariff view, not a general theory.
Jurisdiction
Off Peak Rate
Mid Peak Rate
On Peak Rate
Peak Hours
Ontario, standard TOU
9.8¢/kWh
15.7¢/kWh
20.3¢/kWh
Weekday peak periods under the OEB TOU schedule
Ontario, Ultra-Low Overnight
3.9¢/kWh
Not listed separately
39.1¢/kWh
4 p.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays
Southern California Edison, residential TOU
Around 34¢/kWh or 37¢/kWh depending on plan
51¢/kWh
Around 58¢/kWh on some plans
Utility-specific seasonal windows
Con Edison, TOU
$0.0522/kWh
Not listed separately
$0.2786/kWh summer peak
Summer peak on weekdays
Ontario is the cleanest place to read a TOU schedule because the rates are regulated and published in a standard format. The OEB also publishes the ultra-low overnight option, and that plan creates a much wider spread between off-peak and peak usage than the standard TOU schedule (Ontario Energy Board electricity rates). For a building owner, that spread matters because it changes the payback on timers, controls, and load shifting. The bigger the gap, the more value you get from moving shared loads out of the expensive window.
California is less uniform. Southern California Edison's residential schedules show off-peak charges around 34¢/kWh and 37¢/kWh, with mid-peak at 51¢/kWh and on-peak around 58¢/kWh on some plans (SCE time-of-use plans). That is a plan-by-plan problem, not a single statewide rule. For multi-family owners, that means the control strategy has to match the exact utility schedule, or the building will shift load into the wrong window and lose the savings.
New York shows the same issue in a different form. Con Edison's TOU structure lists $0.0522/kWh off-peak versus $0.2786/kWh summer peak (Con Edison time-of-use billing). That spread is why interval-level visibility matters for buildings with controllable loads. If you can see when common-area equipment, tenant equipment, or EV charging is running, you can separate cheap usage from expensive usage instead of burying both in one blended bill.
California also changes by season, which is where a lot of property teams get caught. Some schedules define peak periods in the afternoon and evening during summer, then remove or reduce those peak blocks in shoulder months, so a control setting that works in one season can be wrong in the next. The California utility guidance on TOU plans spells out those seasonal windows, and the operating rule has to follow the calendar, not a fixed daily routine (SCE time-of-use plans). If your billing software or building controls do not adjust by season, they will misclassify usage and distort cost recovery.
The Financial Impact on Multi Family and Commercial Properties
One rate mistake can erase a big share of building margin. In multi-family and commercial portfolios, the tariff itself matters less than the timing of the load and the owner's ability to assign that cost correctly. Bulk billing turns electricity into a blended expense, which makes it harder to recover shared usage and harder to protect NOI.
Why NOI gets squeezed
If a building cannot separate peak and off-peak usage, it cannot recover those charges with any precision. That shows up as budget volatility, thinner operating margins, and more tenant friction when shared equipment runs at the wrong time. Even disciplined occupants create problems for the owner if the property still pays the higher rate for their usage.
Mixed-use and multifamily assets feel this most because their loads are not uniform. Hallway lighting, elevators, garage ventilation, domestic hot water, package room cooling, and amenity spaces all follow different operating patterns. Some loads stay fixed. Others can shift. Property teams usually learn which ones can move only after they review interval metering and see the actual demand profile.
Where the invisible losses show up
Beyond the utility bill itself, the hidden loss is the missed opportunity to allocate cost fairly among tenants. A tenant with modest usage during peak periods can still end up subsidising another tenant's heavy evening load if electricity is billed as one pooled expense. The same leak appears in commercial suites with after-hours activity, where the owner absorbs the tariff difference unless billing software can assign it back to the right account.
If the building cannot separate the loads, the owner is effectively underwriting the tariff spread.
That financial pressure matters more inside managed buildings than in a single-family home. In a house, one occupant controls the appliance schedule. In a building, multiple parties control different loads, and the owner only captures off-peak savings when the meter data and tenant billing structure are tied together. The core question is whether the property's billing setup lets anyone recover the cheaper hours at all. That is where submetering and a clear billing process change the economics.
For operators who want to close that gap, a practical starting point is a submetering overview that shows how interval data and tenant billing work together.
How Submetering Supports Off-Peak Cost Recovery
Submetering turns electricity from a pooled expense into an allocable cost. That is the point. Once a property has unit-level measurement, interval data, and billing software tied to the tariff, off-peak pricing stops being a vague operating idea and becomes a recoverable line item.
The mechanics matter more than the label
A proper submetering deployment starts with compliant equipment selection, then installation, commissioning, and ongoing data collection. A well-run program also has to fit the building's billing rules and operating workflow, or the numbers never translate into actual recovery. The owner needs more than hardware. The owner needs a system that connects usage timing to cost in a way staff can administer every month.
For multi-family and commercial owners, that connection is where the money sits. Generic residential TOU advice usually stops at “run appliances at night.” That misses the core issue in managed properties, where one tenant's evening load, one common-area schedule, or one shared system can distort the whole bill if the building cannot measure and assign those costs properly.
Typical implementation is fast enough to matter in a live building. The usual window is 8 to 10 weeks from agreement to live meters, including equipment lead time, and work is coordinated with on-site trades to limit disruption. The provider's role is not just to bolt on hardware. It is to make sure the metering, data, and billing workflow match the way the property operates.
What owners gain once meters go live
The first gain is visibility. You can see when unit loads run, when common-area consumption spikes, and whether those spikes align with expensive tariff windows. The second gain is cost recovery. If the billing engine understands the tariff, the owner can allocate electricity by actual use instead of by estimate or guesswork.
Here's the practical sequence:
- Measure the right loads. Separate unit consumption from common-area demand so the owner can see what is driving the bill.
- Map the tariff. Match meter data to off-peak, mid-peak, and on-peak windows.
- Bill with interval logic. Charge tenants based on when usage occurred, not just how much was used.
- Monitor and maintain. Keep the system accurate as the building changes.
Operational rule: if a load can be measured, it can be managed. If it can be billed correctly, it can be recovered.
For a closer look at the building-side workflow, the sub-metering electricity guide shows how interval data and tenant billing support the recovery model. Axis Meter Solutions provides that type of turnkey utility submetering service for multi-family, condominium, mixed-use, and commercial properties, including electricity submetering, tenant billing, and ongoing service under long-term agreements. The value is not the meter itself. The value lies in connecting usage timing to cost without forcing staff into manual spreadsheets.
Load Shifting Strategies and Tenant Billing Design
Once submetering is in place, the next move is obvious. Shift what you can, and bill in a way that makes the savings visible. If tenants never see when electricity costs more, they won't change behaviour. If the bill is unclear, they'll dispute it.
Target the loads you can actually move
Not every load is worth chasing. Focus on the ones a building can control. EV charging, common-area HVAC scheduling, water heating, and laundry are the cleanest examples because they can often be shifted into the cheaper tariff window without hurting service quality. That's where the savings live.
The billing design has to support that behaviour. A statement that shows a total dollar figure won't change anything. A statement that separates usage by time band, shows the tariff applied, and makes the cost difference visible gives residents a reason to adjust.
Design the bill for clarity, not drama
Tenant communication should be plain, not defensive. Spell out the time bands. Show what happened during each one. Explain why the total changed. If the building is in a jurisdiction where peak windows change by season, the billing statement should reflect that automatically.
Automated controls help here because they reduce manual errors. Tariff-aware analytics can adjust for month-to-month shifts and keep a building from applying the wrong schedule in a shoulder season where peak periods may not exist. That's a practical safeguard, not a luxury feature.
Clear billing reduces friction faster than any tenant memo.
A good design also gives residents a reason to cooperate. When people can see the cost difference between peak and off-peak usage, they're more likely to run discretionary loads at the right time. That's especially true in shared buildings where one resident's behaviour affects the owner's operating cost.
Jurisdictional Compliance and Implementation Considerations
Compliance comes first. Not after procurement, not after installation, and definitely not after billing starts. If a submetering program doesn't match the local rules, the owner inherits the dispute, not the savings.
Match the meter to the market
In Ontario, electricity unit sub-metering sits within a regulated environment, and Axis Meter Solutions operates as an Ontario Energy Board licensed Unit Sub-Meter Provider under ES-2022-0268. Equipment selection also has to align with Measurement Canada and, where relevant, U.S. requirements. That's not paperwork for its own sake. It's what keeps the billing defensible.
Properties also vary a lot in size and complexity. Smaller assets with 5 to 10 units can still justify submetering if the load profile is meaningful, while larger portfolios need a more formal rollout plan. The implementation model should cover permits, installation coordination, commissioning, ongoing maintenance, and meter replacement over the agreement term.
Decide based on load profile, not wishful thinking
The right question is whether your building has enough controllable consumption to justify the work. If the answer is yes, submetering can support off-peak recovery and better tenant billing. If the answer is no, a tariff change alone won't fix the operating cost problem.
Use this as the decision filter:
- Confirm jurisdiction rules. Check whether electricity, water, gas, or thermal submetering is allowed and how billing must be presented.
- Review controllable loads. Look at HVAC, laundry, EV charging, common lighting, and other timing-sensitive equipment.
- Assess owner tolerance for disruption. Some buildings can schedule the work quickly, others need tighter coordination.
- Verify the service model. Make sure the provider owns, maintains, and monitors the system for the full term.
The market has made one thing clear. Off-peak prices only turn into savings when the building can measure, allocate, and enforce the schedule. If you want that level of control without taking on upfront capital or a billing headache, review how Axis Meter Solutions structures turnkey submetering for multi-family and commercial properties, then use that lens to compare your own building's load profile against the tariff you're paying.
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