Basics · updated October 6, 2026
How to read your Virginia electric bill
Customer charge, distribution, generation, fuel, riders, and the cooperative power-cost adjustment. Plus the one division that tells you your real rate.
Every solar estimate starts with one number from your bill, and it is not the dollar total. It is the kilowatt-hours. Here is how to find it and what the rest of the page means.
The one calculation
Your real rate = (total amount due − taxes) ÷ kWh used. Do it for a summer bill and a winter bill and average them. This all-in, pre-tax number is what matters for solar, and it is what the rate tracker reports for every utility: revenue divided by sales, with pass-through consumption taxes excluded. Virginia's statewide figure was 17.55¢ in July 2026.
The line items
Basic customer charge
A flat monthly fee for having a meter. You pay it with or without solar. Co-ops tend to have higher fixed charges than investor-owned utilities, which slightly weakens solar economics there. This is the "fixed monthly charges" field in the calculator.
Distribution
Poles, wires, transformers, trucks: the cost of delivering power to your house, charged per kWh. This is the part the utility "owns" and the State Corporation Commission regulates most directly.
Generation or supply
The power itself. At Dominion and APCo, part of this is the base generation rate and part is the fuel factor, which is reset periodically to true-up actual fuel costs. At cooperatives, most of this is wholesale power bought from a generation and transmission cooperative or the PJM market.
Power cost adjustment (co-ops)
Cooperatives pass wholesale cost changes through a PCA or similar rider that can change several times a year. It is why a co-op's "rate" from a year ago is a poor guide to this month's bill, and why this site shows calendar-year averages for co-ops with the year clearly labeled rather than pretending to know the current PCA.
Riders
Separately approved surcharges for specific programs: grid modernization, renewable energy, nuclear, storm recovery, energy efficiency. Each has a code on the bill. Individually small, collectively significant, and the reason tariff sheets never add up to what you pay.
Taxes
State and local consumption taxes, usually per kWh with a cap. The utility collects them and passes them through, so they are not in the EIA averages on this site. Leave them out when you compute your rate.
Where the kWh hides
Look for "usage," "kWh used," or a meter-reading section with a previous and current reading. Many bills also show a 12- or 13-month bar chart of usage. If yours does, you already have the single most useful input for a solar estimate: annual kWh. Divide by 12 and you have the monthly figure the calculator wants.
With solar on the bill
A net-metered bill adds a few lines: kWh delivered to you, kWh received from you, net kWh, and a running credit balance. In a surplus month the net is negative and the credit grows; in a deficit month you spend credits. The customer charge and some riders continue regardless. How net metering works covers the 12-month rollover.
For reference, Dominion's residential average was 15.20¢ per kWh in 2025 across all charges, per EIA.