Duke Energy Ohio commercial electricity

What the U.S. government data says about Duke Energy Ohio

• Commercial customers64,5592025, EIA Form EIA-861
• Buy energy from a supplier90%of commercial kWh · 70% of customers
• Delivery price3.83¢average per kWh, delivery-only customers
• Default-service price14.11¢per kWh, customers on bundled service
• Outages108 mina year per customer · US average 124

In 2025, 90% of the commercial kWh delivered by Duke Energy Ohio went to customers buying energy from a competitive supplier, and 10% stayed on the utility's default service. By customer count it is 70%, because the businesses that shop tend to be the larger ones.

Duke Energy Ohio’s delivery charges averaged 3.83¢ per kWh across its 45,505 delivery-only commercial customers: the part of the bill no supplier can change. It is an average over customers of every size. Large customers pay far less per kWh than small ones, so your own delivery charge per kWh will differ; the average customer here used about 13,269 kWh a month.

Duke Energy Ohio customers went without power for an average of 108 minutes in 2025, excluding major storms, with about 0.87 interruptions per customer. The average across U.S. utilities reporting the same way is 124 minutes.

EIA records Duke Energy Ohio serving customers in 23 Ohio counties: Adams, Brown, Butler, Clark, Clermont, Clinton, Coshocton, Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Greene, Hamilton, Highland, Licking, and 9 more. A county can be shared between utilities, so this does not tell you who serves a given address.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861, 2025 final data. Averages across all commercial customers of each service type: dated context, not a quote and not an available offer.

What Duke Energy Ohio controls and what it does not

Cities and areas in this territory

Territory boundaries do not follow city limits. Two addresses on the same street can sit in different territories, which is why we confirm the Account number rather than inferring eligibility from the city or the ZIP code. Inferring from location is the most common way a commercial account is told it can do something it cannot.

Cincinnati · Hamilton · Middletown

Which lever moves which charge

This is the question a utility page exists to answer. If you change something at the meter, which line on the bill actually moves — and which one does not move no matter what you do?

Fixed customer chargeNothing you do

A flat monthly amount for being connected. It does not move with consumption or with peak.

No lever

Volumetric distributionHow much you use

Charged per kilowatt-hour. This is the line that efficiency work moves.

Use less

Demand chargeHow hard you draw

Charged per kilowatt of billed demand. Set by your highest interval, not by your total — which is why cutting consumption may not move it at all.

Lower the peak

Riders and surchargesRegulatory filings

Adjusted periodically through approved filings. They step rather than scale, and nothing you do at the meter changes them.

No lever

Schematic shapes, not Duke Energy Ohio's actual rates — those come from the filed tariff. The point is the behaviour: two of these four respond to something you control, and a supplier changes none of them.

What sits inside the delivery charge from Duke Energy Ohio

Delivery is not one number. On a commercial account it is typically assembled from several components, each set by the filed tariff and each behaving differently as your usage changes:

• A fixed customer or meter charge, which does not move with consumption at all.
• A volumetric distribution charge per kWh, which scales with how much you use.
• A demand charge per kW where the account is demand-metered, which scales with how hard you draw rather than how much you use — and which is where a low load factor account gets hurt.
• Riders and surcharges, adjusted periodically through regulatory filings, covering items such as transmission cost recovery, energy efficiency programs and storm or system restoration costs.

None of these changes when you change supplier. Understanding the mix matters because it determines which action actually moves your bill: reducing consumption attacks the volumetric component, reducing peak draw attacks the demand component, and neither one touches the fixed charge.

The other territories in Ohio

Boundaries do not follow city limits. If you are not certain which of these serves your address, confirm the Account number printed on the bill rather than inferring it from the city.

What the Duke Energy Ohio tariff says: Rate DS (Service at Secondary Distribution Voltage)

Read 2026-10-31 from Duke Energy Ohio Electric Tariff, P.U.C.O. Electric No. 19, Sheet No. 40.19 (Rate DS), effective January 3, 2023. Each figure is quoted from that document, and it is a schedule figure, not a bill estimate. See every tariff quoted on this site. The tariff and the schedule code on your bill control what applies to you.

Who Rate DS covers

Rate DS applies to electric service at the standard secondary system voltage (single phase or three phase) where the company determines that adequate facilities are available next to the premises and that the customer's average monthly demand is greater than 15 kilowatts. Service must be supplied at one point of delivery.

Customer charge

The customer charge is $23.00 per month for single phase service and $46.00 per month for single and/or three phase service.

Demand charge

The demand charge is $6.9678 per kW, applied to all kilowatts.

Minimum load factor

The charges are computed so that the minimum monthly load factor, expressed as hours-use per month, is not less than 71 kWh per kW. When that applies, billing demand is calculated as the monthly kWh usage divided by 71.

How billing demand is set

Demand is the kilowatts from the company's demand meter for the fifteen-minute period of greatest use, adjusted for power factor. Billing demand is never taken as less than the higher of two figures: 85% of the highest monthly kilowatt demand set in the summer period (June through September), effective for the next eleven months, or 1 kilowatt for each single phase meter and 5 kilowatts for each three phase meter.

Power factor and minimum bill

The power factor to be maintained is not less than 90% lagging; if it is lower, billing demand is the kilovolt amperes multiplied by 0.90. The minimum bill provision is stated as 85% of the highest monthly kilowatt demand set in the summer period, effective for the next eleven months, plus the customer charge, and in no case less than the customer charge.

Billed separately

The sheet's Net Monthly Bill lists the distribution charges above and refers to Sheet No. 85, Applicable Riders, for the riders that apply and their charges; it prints no rider amount or generation charge.

What to pull off a Duke Energy Ohio bill before any conversation

• Account number — the identifier that determines territory and eligibility
• Rate schedule code as printed on the bill
• 12 months of kWh, and peak kW if the account is demand-metered
• The delivery and supply sections, kept separate
• Current supplier and contract expiry, if any