Castle Rock, Colorado Aug 16, 2026 (Issuewire.com) Alpha Air Heating & Cooling, a technician-owned residential HVAC company serving Castle Rock and Douglas County, is drawing attention to a feature of local electric billing that many area homeowners do not know applies to them, and that most widely circulated summer energy advice does not account for.
Homes served by CORE Electric Cooperative are billed under a three-part residential rate. Alongside the monthly service charge and the per-kilowatt-hour energy charge sits a demand charge, which as of January 2026 bills is $5.47 multiplied by the household’s highest single 60-minute draw during on-peak hours of 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. According to CORE, that charge is applied only once per billing cycle, based on the maximum average kilowatt load recorded in any sixty consecutive minutes within that window. The on-peak period runs year-round and applies to all days of the week, weekends included.
The practical effect is that a household’s total monthly electricity use is not the only thing setting its bill. A single hour can…