NorthWestern Energy LLC - (MT)
NorthWestern Energy LLC - (MT) is an investor-owned utility, regulated by the state commission, serving 328,127 residential accounts in Montana. Everything below comes from its own 2024 filing with the US Energy Information Administration — the numbers the company reported about itself.
- Average residential rate
- $0.142/kWh
- Homes with solar
- 8,159
- Rooftop capacity
- 58 MW
2024 annual average
2.5% of residential accounts
residential, net-metered
What households here pay
Residential customers on NorthWestern Energy LLC - (MT)'s own supply paid an average of $0.142 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.
Montana's statewide average was $0.151/kWh in June 2026 on EIA's monthly series. This utility's 2024 average ran about 6% below that. The two figures are measured differently and are two years apart, so read the gap as direction, not as a precise difference.
What it did between 2020 and 2024
NorthWestern Energy LLC - (MT)'s all-in residential rate went from $0.122 in 2020 to $0.142 in 2024 — a rise of 17.0%. 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 NorthWestern Energy LLC - (MT) moved with the pack. 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.
Two bills in one
2 of these households — 0% — buy their electricity from a competitive supplier and pay NorthWestern Energy LLC - (MT) only to deliver it. The average above covers the 328,125 still on the utility's own supply. If you shop for supply, your rate is set by your contract, and solar savings track your rate, not this one.How many neighbours already did it
8,159 homes on this system had a net-metered solar array at the end of 2024 — 24.9 per thousand residential accounts, or 2.5% of them. That is about 2.1× the median US utility on this site, so solar here is common rather than unusual.
174 of those systems — 2% — also report a paired battery. Battery attach rates rise where exports earn less than retail, because storing a kilowatt-hour and using it later is worth more than selling it. Exports here still earn full retail, so the incentive to store is weaker.
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 Montana utilities
| Utility | Accounts | Avg rate | Solar per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flathead Electric Coop Inc | 63,317 | $0.097 | 3.6 |
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 12825. 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.