On July 1, 2026, Dominion Energy South Carolina raised residential electricity rates 7.62% — about $12 more a month for a typical home. It applies whether you're on standard Rate 8 or time-of-use Rate 7. Here's the straight read, with the numbers from Dominion.
What went up
The approved increase is 7.62%, effective July 1, 2026. For a home using 1,000 kWh a month, that's a jump from about $159 to about $171 — just under $12 more per month, per Dominion's own rate-review page. Dominion originally asked for roughly 12.7%; a settlement filed in May 2026 brought it down to 7.62%.
This is a base-rate increase, so it isn't limited to any one plan — it lifts both standard Rate 8 and time-of-use Rate 7 service. (Separately, the same month's order also reshaped the time-of-use windows — weekends are now on-peak, plus a new winter midday super-off-peak period. That's a different change, and I break it down in Dominion's July 2026 time-of-use changes.) You can pull up every current schedule on Dominion's rates and tariffs page.
Why it went up
This is the outcome of a general rate case. A regulated utility like Dominion recovers what it spends on the grid — poles, wires, substations, storm hardening — plus an authorized return for its shareholders, and it collects that through the rates you pay. Regional electricity demand is also climbing, which adds long-term upward pressure on what everyone pays to keep the system built out.
Worth being precise: a single rate case is about Dominion's own costs and approved return — not a line-item "someone else's bill landing on yours." But the broader trend — more demand, more buildout, higher rates — is real, and it's been pushing the same direction for years. That same demand pressure is behind a much bigger move: Dominion has agreed to be acquired by NextEra — what that could mean for SC customers.
What a permanently higher bill means for you
Base-rate increases don't come back down. Once it's in, it's the new floor, and the next case starts from there. That's the part worth sitting with: this isn't a one-month blip, it's a step up that compounds with every future increase.
There are really only two levers a homeowner controls:
- When you buy power. On a time-of-use plan, shifting your usage out of the expensive on-peak window is where the savings live — and a battery does that automatically, every day. Whether it pays off depends entirely on your bill: see is a home battery worth it on Dominion Rate 7 and how a battery actually lowers your bill.
- How much you buy. Generating your own power with solar cuts what you pull from the grid in the first place — though the math there is its own topic.
Neither is automatically worth it, and rising rates alone don't make a battery pay for itself. What they do is tilt the math a little further with each increase.
Run your own number
Averages don't pay your bill — yours does. The analyzer runs your actual Dominion bill at the current rates and shows what a battery does for your home: backup time, the savings on a rate switch, and a real system with pricing — at today's numbers, with no federal tax credit for a 2026 purchase.
The bottom line
Rates went up 7.6% in July 2026, it hit every residential customer, and base-rate increases are permanent. You can't vote the rate back down — but you can control when and how much power you buy. That's the whole reason time-of-use plus a battery is worth running the math on.
Rate figures are from Dominion Energy South Carolina as of July 2026 and reflect the approved settlement. Rates change — confirm the current figures on your bill or Dominion's site.