SCE Peak Hours Are 4–9 PM on Common TOU Plans

What are SCE's (Edison's) peak hours?

Southern California Edison's peak hours are 4–9 PM on its two most common residential plans (TOU-D-4-9PM and the EV/battery-oriented TOU-D-PRIME) and 5–8 PM on TOU-D-5-8PM. On the weekday plans, the full on-peak price applies on summer weekdays; on summer weekends the same evening window is billed at a lower 'mid-peak' rate — cheaper than the weekday peak, but still above off-peak. TOU-D-PRIME charges its peak rate every day in summer.

In winter (October–May) the pattern shifts: the 4–9 PM window drops to a mid-peak price every day, and SCE adds a 'super off-peak' period from 8 AM to 4 PM — the cheapest electricity of the day, priced low because midday solar floods the grid. Everything else, including overnight, is off-peak.

That schedule is exactly backwards from how a home uses power: panels produce midday when rates are lowest, and the peak hits after sunset. A battery closes the gap — it banks cheap midday solar and spends it during the SCE peak, so you avoid Southern California Edison's priciest power. Here are the current SCE residential TOU windows at a glance.

Edison and SCE are the same utility — Southern California Edison — so peak hours for Edison are these same 4–9 PM and 5–8 PM evening windows, whichever TOU plan your bill shows.

SCE vs. SDG&E vs. PG&E: peak hours compared

All three of California's big investor-owned utilities put their most expensive hours in the same evening block. SCE peaks 4–9 PM (or 5–8 PM on one plan), SDG&E peaks 4–9 PM every day of the week, and PG&E peaks 4–9 PM every day on its standard TOU plan (E-TOU-C) or 5–8 PM weekdays only (E-TOU-D). The cheapest hours differ more than the peaks do: SDG&E's 'super off-peak' runs overnight and, on weekdays, 10 AM–2 PM, while SCE's cheapest window is winter daytime.

When are peak hours for electricity in California?

If you just need the number: peak hours for electricity in California are in the early evening — 4–9 PM on the standard time-of-use plans from all three investor-owned utilities. The variants are narrow: SCE's TOU-D-5-8PM and PG&E's E-TOU-D peak 5–8 PM instead. If you don't know your exact plan, treating 4–9 PM as the expensive window is the right assumption for the vast majority of Southern California households.

Off-peak electricity hours are the mirror image — overnight and, increasingly, midday. Off-peak starts at 9 PM on SCE's most common plan and runs to 4 PM the next day, and both SCE and SDG&E now price parts of the daytime below the night because midday solar floods the grid. The comparison table above shows each utility's exact windows.

Is electricity cheaper at night in California?

Yes. On every major California time-of-use plan, overnight electricity costs less than the 4–9 PM evening peak. SCE's off-peak begins at 9 PM on its most common plan, SDG&E's cheapest 'super off-peak' pricing runs midnight to 6 AM on weekdays, and PG&E's standard plan is off-peak from 9 PM until 4 PM the next day.

But night is no longer always the cheapest time. California's grid now carries so much midday solar that utilities price parts of the day below the night: SCE's winter super off-peak runs 8 AM–4 PM, and in May 2026 SDG&E made its 10 AM–2 PM weekday super off-peak window year-round. Overnight or midday both work for heavy loads — the only consistently wrong time is 4–9 PM.

Are weekends off-peak?

Mostly — but not everywhere, and not entirely. On SCE's weekday plans (TOU-D-4-9PM and TOU-D-5-8PM), summer weekends never hit the full on-peak price: the evening window is billed at a lower mid-peak rate, and the rest of the weekend is off-peak. On PG&E's E-TOU-D, weekends are entirely off-peak.

SDG&E is the exception that surprises people: its residential TOU plans apply the 4–9 PM peak price every day — Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays included. The same goes for PG&E's standard E-TOU-C and SCE's TOU-D-PRIME. So don't assume weekend power is cheap by default; it depends on your specific plan.

What are SCE's off-peak hours?

SCE's off-peak hours are everything outside the evening window. On TOU-D-4-9PM, off-peak runs from 9 PM to 4 PM the next day; on TOU-D-5-8PM, from 8 PM to 5 PM. In winter (October–May), SCE goes further and prices 8 AM–4 PM as 'super off-peak' — the cheapest electricity it sells all year.

Weekends soften the peak but don't erase it: on the weekday plans, summer weekend evenings bill at a lower mid-peak rate instead of full on-peak, with all other weekend hours off-peak. TOU-D-PRIME is the exception — its 4–9 PM peak applies every day, weekends included.

Winter vs. summer TOU rates

The clock windows barely change with the seasons — the prices do. Summer is when peak power costs the most: SCE and PG&E define summer as June through September, and SDG&E stretches it from June through October. Winter peak prices are lower, and on SCE the 4–9 PM window softens to mid-peak with an 8 AM–4 PM super off-peak that makes winter daytime the cheapest grid power SCE sells.

For solar owners the seasons cut the other way: winter brings cheaper rates but shorter days and lower production, while summer brings peak production and peak prices at the same time. A system sized only for July overproduces in January for low NEM 3.0 export credits — which is why we size arrays and batteries to your full-year usage, not a single season.

The cheapest time to use electricity

The cheapest grid electricity in Southern California sits in the super off-peak and off-peak windows: overnight (SDG&E's midnight–6 AM on weekdays; SCE's off-peak from 9 PM) and, increasingly, midday (SCE's winter 8 AM–4 PM; SDG&E's 10 AM–2 PM weekdays). The most expensive time is always the same: 4–9 PM, when demand spikes just as solar fades.

Practical moves, in order of impact: charge the EV overnight or midday instead of at dinner time, move the pool pump schedule out of the evening, and run the dishwasher and laundry before 4 PM or after 9 PM. Those three cover most of what a household can shift by habit alone.

Solar with a battery ends the scheduling game entirely: the panels charge the battery on your own power at midday, and the battery carries the house through the expensive hours. That's the design we model in a free estimate — your actual rate plan, your usage, and a system that beats the peak you actually pay.

What time-of-use pricing means

On a time-of-use (TOU) rate plan, the price of a kilowatt-hour changes by time of day. California's investor-owned utilities — PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E — set their most expensive 'peak' window in the evening, commonly around 4–9 PM, with cheaper off-peak rates overnight and midday. The catch: peak is exactly when the sun is low and your panels produce the least.

Why TOU plus NEM 3.0 makes a battery essential

TOU and NEM 3.0 compound each other. Daytime solar you export earns a low credit, while evening power you buy costs the most. A battery bridges that gap: it banks your midday solar and releases it during the 4–9 PM peak so you're not buying expensive grid energy when you cook dinner, run the AC, and charge the car. New to the term? Our short explainer on what net energy metering (NEM) is walks through NEM 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 before you get into the rate-plan details.

A day in the life of a well-designed system

Morning: your panels wake up and start covering the house. Midday: panels overproduce, topping off your battery. Late afternoon into evening: the 4–9 PM peak hits, the battery discharges to power your home, and you draw little or nothing from the grid at its priciest. Overnight: if needed, you backfill from cheaper off-peak rates. That daily rhythm is what produces real savings under current rules.

Do SCE peak hours change in Orange County?

No. SCE sets peak windows by rate plan, not by city — an SCE customer in Orange County has the same 4–9 PM (or 5–8 PM) peak as one anywhere else in Edison's service territory. If your bill says Southern California Edison, the windows in this guide are yours.

The one local exception is the city of Anaheim, which is served by Anaheim Public Utilities — a municipal utility that sets its own rates and isn't bound by SCE's TOU schedule. We design to whichever utility actually serves your address, which is one of the first things we check in a free estimate.

Designing for your specific rate and usage

Different TOU plans have different peak windows and price spreads, and your savings depend on matching the system to your plan and habits — when you're home, your EV charging schedule, AC use. We read your utility bill and usage data to size the array and battery for your actual rate plan, rather than a generic template, so the system is tuned to beat the peak you actually pay.

Wondering how the monthly payment compares to the bill it replaces? See our solar and battery financing options.

Battery arbitrage: shifting the duck curve to your advantage (2026)

Arbitrage is a finance word for a simple habit: buy when something is cheap, use it when it is expensive. On a California time-of-use plan a home battery does exactly that with electricity — it fills up on midday power that is worth little and spends it during the evening window when grid power costs the most. Every peak window on this page is a window a battery can cover: SCE's 4–9 PM (TOU-D-4-9PM and TOU-D-PRIME) or 5–8 PM (TOU-D-5-8PM), SDG&E's 4–9 PM every day, and PG&E's 4–9 PM daily on E-TOU-C or 5–8 PM weekdays on E-TOU-D. The size of the price gap between midday and evening on your plan is what sets the savings.

What the duck curve is. Plot California's grid demand minus solar output across one day and the line looks like a duck: a sagging belly in the middle of the day, when rooftop and utility-scale panels flood the grid with more power than it needs, then a steep neck and head after 4 PM as the sun drops and people come home. The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which runs the state's grid, gave the shape its name, and it explains nearly every rule on this page. Midday power is so plentiful that SCE prices winter daytime (8 AM–4 PM) at super off-peak and SDG&E now prices 10 AM–2 PM weekdays at super off-peak year-round; the 4–9 PM ramp is scarce and expensive, so that is where all three utilities put their peak. Under NEM 3.0 the same shape sets your export credits: solar sent to the grid at noon earns a low avoided-cost credit because the grid is already full, while the few kilowatt-hours the grid genuinely wants land on summer evenings.

A battery flips the duck in your favor. From late morning through mid-afternoon your panels usually make more than the house is using; instead of exporting that surplus for a low credit, the battery absorbs it. At 4 PM — or 5 PM on a 5–8 PM plan — the battery starts discharging and carries the house through the peak: dinner, lights, the AC still running in inland Orange County, an EV plugged in at 6 PM. By 9 PM the peak is over and whatever the house still needs comes from the grid at off-peak prices. If a cloudy day leaves the battery short, some systems can be set to top up from the grid during the cheap window (SCE's winter 8 AM–4 PM super off-peak, SDG&E's 10 AM–2 PM weekday super off-peak) so the evening is still covered. How many kilowatt-hours the battery needs to hold is the sizing question, worked through step by step in our home battery sizing guide.

A plain worked example, in kilowatt-hours rather than cents, because prices change with every rate filing. Take an SCE home on TOU-D-4-9PM whose hourly usage data shows 5.5 kWh of consumption between 4 and 9 PM — the same example home used in our sizing guide. On a summer weekday the panels bank that 5.5 kWh into the battery before 3 PM, and from 4 to 9 PM the house runs on the battery instead of buying 5.5 kWh at the on-peak price. On a summer weekend the same shift happens against SCE's lower mid-peak price, and in winter against the winter mid-peak price, so the same hardware earns less per evening as the seasons change. The same home on SDG&E's TOU-DR1 shifts the same 5.5 kWh but does it seven evenings a week, because SDG&E's 4–9 PM peak applies on weekends and holidays too. On PG&E's E-TOU-C the peak is also every day; on E-TOU-D it is 5–8 PM on weekdays only, so the battery covers three hours instead of five. To turn any of those into dollars, multiply the kilowatt-hours you shift by the gap between your plan's peak and off-peak prices, then by the number of peak days in the month — our TOU bill-shift estimator does that arithmetic from the prices printed on your own bill, and the result is a projection for your usage, not a guarantee.

There is a second, smaller lever: export timing. NEM 3.0 export credits are not one flat number — they follow an hourly avoided-cost schedule that is lowest in the middle of a spring day and highest on a handful of summer evenings, when the grid is on the steep part of the duck. A battery with time-based controls can hold its charge through the afternoon and export what the house does not need during that evening window, earning the higher credit. For most Southern California homes this is a bonus on top of self-consumption rather than the main event: the reliable value is not buying peak power at all, and the export credit is a projection that depends on the hour, the season, and the utility's schedule. The table below puts the three strategies side by side.

Which strategy pencils depends on your rate plan, your evening usage, and what the hardware costs — compare the battery platforms we install on our battery storage page, and see how the array side is priced in our solar cost per watt guide for California. Bring a recent bill to a free estimate and we will model the peak-window shift for your actual plan, with every savings figure shown as a projection.