Demand charges: you're billed on your peak, not just your kWh
Many commercial tariffs charge for the highest power draw (kW) of the month, separately from energy (kWh). A 24/7 miner is a permanent new peak — know this line before you scale a site.
Two different billing bases
Energy (kWh) is consumption over time — the number home bills are built on. Demand (kW) is power: some tariffs bill your measured peak (usually a 15- or 30-minute average) at a $/kW rate. A miner running flat 24/7 holds a site's peak up permanently — even if total kWh is modest.
Round example: a $10/kW demand tariff with a 20 kW peak adds $200/month on top of energy charges. Adding a 3 kW miner to that site pushes the peak (and the bill) up by $30/month — before the miner draws a single kWh's worth of energy billing.
The traps
- Multiplying the demand rate by kWh — the units are different (kW vs kWh); the product is meaningless.
- Assuming overnight running dodges demand — peaks are usually measured around the clock on demand tariffs.
- Ratchets: some tariffs keep billing a fraction of your historical highest peak for months after it passes.
- Simultaneous loads stack: miners + cooling + cooking can set the peak together in one interval.
See it live on pow.family
Home/residential miners usually see no demand line — but our fleet-rental notes on project pages record real observed power draws, the input the utility will ask about.