Columbia Same—Interruptible service rate ordinance (§ 27-115)
Chapter 27: Utilities · Article III. Water and Light System
In short: Large general or industrial customers with at least 500 kw of interruptible load can sign an agreement with the city for this rate. If they can't fully cut that load when asked, they pay $36.40 per kw, and repeated violations bar them from reapplying for one year.
Our plain-English summary, not the official text or legal advice. The ordinance below is what counts.
(a) Available: Customers receiving service on the large general service rate or the industrial service rate and having at least five hundred (500) kw of load that is interruptible are eligible to place a contracted firm demand on the interruptible service rate. Interruptible loads are specific areas of a customer's service that can be identified and metered and can be entirely removed from service during periods requested by the utility. Arrangements for interruptible service require a signed agreement between the customer and the city. The rate is not available for temporary, standby, breakdown, supplementary or resale service.
(b) Application: The interruptible service rate shall apply to identifiable load where the service is supplied at one (1) point of delivery and measured through one (1) meter. At the time of interruption the meter reading for that period should register zero. If the customer is unable to interrupt the total load at the utility's request, a charge of thirty-six dollars and forty cents ($36.40) per kilowatt will be charged on the kilowatt load registered on the meter during that period. If the customer continues to violate the terms of the interruptible agreement, the customer will be removed from the interruptible rate and put on a rate based on the customer's loads during the previous summer period. The customer will not be allowed to reapply for the interruptible rate for one (1) year.
Customers with auxiliary power connected to the interruptible load will be allowed up to one (1) percent of the interruptible kilowatt load on the meter before the charge for the auxiliary load will be billed at thirty-six dollars and forty cents ($36.40) per kilowatt on a monthly basis during the interruptible period.
(c) Monthly rate charge: The monthly rate per kilowatt hour shall be as follows, subject to power cost adjustments as provided in section 27-118:
(1) Customer charge (per month): .....
Summer .....$66.30
Non-Summer .....66.30
(2) Demand charge (per kilowatt): .....
Summer .....11.11
Non-Summer .....9.02
(3) Energy charge (per kilowatt hour): .....
Summer .....0.0464
Non-Summer .....0.0432
(d) Minimum monthly charge: Customer charge plus the demand charge of kw times billing demand.
(e) In lieu of gross receipts tax payments and sales tax: In addition to the charge based on monthly rates as computed above, the total monthly charge for service shall include applicable sales taxes and in lieu of gross receipts tax payments equal to 7.5268 percent of the monthly rate charge. Sales taxes shall be applied to the total of the monthly rate charge and the in lieu of gross receipts tax payment.
(f) Billing demand: The maximum thirty-minute kw demand measured during the billing month, but not less than one hundred (100) percent of the maximum billing demand set during the billing months for June, July, August and September of the preceding eleven-month billing period.
(g) Primary service: When the customer owns and maintains all equipment except metering equipment, necessary to take service at thirteen thousand eight hundred (13,800) volts or higher, total rate charges will be reduced by ten cents ($0.10) times the highest thirty-minute kw demand during the billing cycle.
(h) Primary metering: If, at the option of the department, service is metered at primary voltage, the measured demand and kwh will be decreased by two (2) percent.
(i) Power factor: Customer will at all times maintain a power factor of not less than ninety (90) percent lagging. If power factor is less than ninety (90) percent, the measured kilowatt demand will be multiplied by the ratio of ninety (90) percent divided by the actual power factor to determine the adjusted measured demand to be used for determination of billing demand. The department may, at its option, use for adjustment the power factor determined:
(1) By test during periods of maximum demand; or
(2) By measurement of the average monthly power factor.
Official source: City of Columbia official Code of Ordinances (online): look up Sec. 27-115
Text from Supplement 139 (September 3, 2026).
Last checked November 1, 2026. The city's official copy controls; this page is a reading copy, not legal advice.