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Upper Cumberland E M C

Upper Cumberland E M C is a member-owned cooperative, serving 45,560 residential accounts in Tennessee. Everything below comes from its own 2024 filing with the US Energy Information Administration — the numbers the company reported about itself.

Average residential rate
$0.128/kWh

2024 annual average

Homes with solar
None reported

in 2024

Rooftop capacity
—

residential, net-metered

What households here pay

Residential customers on Upper Cumberland E M C's own supply paid an average of $0.128 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.

Tennessee's statewide average was $0.141/kWh in June 2026 on EIA's monthly series. This utility's 2024 average ran about 9% below that. 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 12th most expensive of the 30 Tennessee utilities on this site in 2024.

What it did between 2020 and 2024

Upper Cumberland E M C's all-in residential rate went from $0.111 in 2020 to $0.128 in 2024 — a rise of 14.9%. 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 Upper Cumberland E M C moved with the pack. Rates rose almost everywhere in this window; the comparison is what says whether a number is unusual.

$0.111 2020
$0.112 2021
$0.123 2022
$0.124 2023
$0.128 2024

Residential revenue over residential sales, bundled service only, from each year's EIA Form 861.

How many neighbours already did it

Upper Cumberland E M C reported no net-metered residential solar for 2024. That can mean the programme does not exist, that it is full, or simply that nothing was filed — the form does not distinguish. Check with the utility before assuming an array can be interconnected on standard terms.

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.

Run the Tennessee numbers on 2026 rules →

Other Tennessee utilities

Utility Accounts Avg rate Solar per 1,000
Nashville Electric Service 417,640 $0.135 —
City of Memphis - (TN) 380,286 $0.122 —
Middle Tennessee E M C 307,370 $0.118 —
Knoxville Utilities Board 193,707 $0.125 —
City of Chattanooga - (TN) 164,417 $0.123 —
Volunteer Electric Coop 104,387 $0.122 —
Cumberland Elec Member Corp 100,585 $0.130 —
City of Clarksville - (TN) 75,953 $0.128 —
Johnson City - (TN) 72,205 $0.124 —
Duck River Elec Member Corp 71,342 $0.125 —
City of Lenoir - (TN) 62,455 $0.120 —
Southwest Tennessee E M C 43,750 $0.129 —

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 19574. 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 . Last reviewed 2026-08-19.