Black Hills Colorado Electric, LLC
Black Hills Colorado Electric, LLC is an investor-owned utility, regulated by the state commission, serving 89,252 residential accounts in Colorado. Everything below comes from its own 2024 filing with the US Energy Information Administration — the numbers the company reported about itself.
- Average residential rate
- $0.171/kWh
- Homes with solar
- 8,956
- Rooftop capacity
- 60 MW
2024 annual average
10.0% of residential accounts
residential, net-metered
What households here pay
Residential customers on Black Hills Colorado Electric, LLC's own supply paid an average of $0.171 per kWh across 2024 — total residential revenue divided by total residential kilowatt-hours sold, so it includes the fixed monthly charge, riders and fuel adjustments, not just the headline energy rate. It is the number your own bill would produce if you divided the annual total by the kWh.
Colorado's statewide average was $0.171/kWh in June 2026 on EIA's monthly series. This utility sits close to the state average. The two figures are measured differently and are two years apart, so read the gap as direction, not as a precise difference.
That made it the 1st most expensive of the 13 Colorado utilities on this site in 2024.
What it did between 2020 and 2024
Black Hills Colorado Electric, LLC's all-in residential rate went from $0.164 in 2020 to $0.171 in 2024 — a rise of 4.0%. Each year is that year's own Form 861 filing, worked out the same way as the figure above.
Across the 505 utilities on this site the middle one moved up 15.7% over the same years, so Black Hills Colorado Electric, LLC moved more gently than most. Rates rose almost everywhere in this window; the comparison is what says whether a number is unusual.
Residential revenue over residential sales, bundled service only, from each year's EIA Form 861.
How many neighbours already did it
8,956 homes on this system had a net-metered solar array at the end of 2024 — 100.3 per thousand residential accounts, or 10.0% of them. That is about 8.3× the median US utility on this site, so solar here is common rather than unusual.
That ranks 2 of 13 Colorado utilities reporting net-metered solar.
The rule that decides this, and it changed
The 30% federal residential credit (§25D) expired for systems placed in service after 31 December 2025. Every payback figure written before 2026 — including anything quoted at you by an installer working from an old spreadsheet — is overstated by roughly a third for a purchase. Leases and PPAs still reach §48E until the end of 2027, which is why the ownership question now decides more than the hardware does.Other Colorado utilities
| Utility | Accounts | Avg rate | Solar per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public Service Co of Colorado | 1,365,053 | $0.151 | 83.1 |
| City of Colorado Springs - (CO) | 216,771 | $0.145 | 43.1 |
| CORE Electric Cooperative | 165,067 | $0.150 | 60.6 |
| United Power, Inc | 101,502 | $0.158 | 124.2 |
| City of Fort Collins - (CO) | 70,803 | $0.132 | 55.3 |
| Mountain View Elec Assn, Inc | 59,789 | $0.155 | 63.6 |
| Holy Cross Electric Assn, Inc | 49,982 | $0.120 | 54.6 |
| Poudre Valley REA, Inc | 49,587 | $0.122 | 45.6 |
| City of Longmont | 40,855 | $0.123 | 24.7 |
| La Plata Electric Assn, Inc | 39,931 | $0.167 | 68.5 |
| City of Loveland - (CO) | 37,007 | $0.144 | 13.4 |
| Delta Montrose Electric Assn | 32,575 | $0.150 | 63.1 |
Where these numbers come from
US Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861, data year 2024 — the annual filing every US electric utility makes. Rates are residential revenue divided by residential sales on bundled service; solar counts are from the net-metering schedule of the same filing. Utility number 56146. Download the source archive and check any figure here against it.
Form 861 is annual and publishes roughly eleven months after the year it covers, so 2024 is the most recent utility-level data that exists anywhere. It is not today's tariff. For a current price, read your own bill; for a current rate structure, read the utility's tariff sheet. This page is for scale and comparison — what a typical household on this system pays, and how many of them have already installed solar.
Written and maintained by guarledes . Last reviewed 2026-08-19.