Electricity peak hours are the busy times of day when power costs the most. In Ontario, the only province where Time-of-Use (a price that changes by the hour) is the default, on-peak power is 20.3 ¢/kWh and off-peak is just 9.8 ¢/kWh, about half. Off-peak covers every weekday evening and overnight, plus all weekends. In most other provinces, like Quebec, British Columbia, and Manitoba, there are no peak hours, because the price is the same all day.
Think of peak hours like a busy highway with a toll that goes up at rush hour. The road is the same, but it costs more when everyone wants it at once. Travel late or on the weekend, and the toll drops.
| Item | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| On-peak price (TOU) | 20.3 ¢/kWh | Most expensive |
| Mid-peak price (TOU) | 15.7 ¢/kWh | The forgotten middle |
| Off-peak price (TOU) | 9.8 ¢/kWh | Cheapest |
| Off-peak hours | Weekdays 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. + all weekends | Same all year |
| On-peak hours (summer) | Weekdays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. | In effect now |
| On-peak hours (winter) | Weekdays 7 to 11 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m. | Nov 1 to Apr 30 |
| Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO) | 3.9 ¢/kWh overnight, 39.1 ¢/kWh on-peak | Opt-in, best for EVs |
| Provinces with peak hours | Mainly Ontario | Not most of Canada |
The belief: "peak hours are a Canada-wide thing"
Most people assume electricity peak hours work the same everywhere, like a national rule baked into every bill. So a tip that helps in Toronto gets repeated as if it helps in Montreal or Vancouver too.
That picture is wrong, and the gap matters. In Canada, electricity is priced province by province, like each province running its own store with its own price tags. Ontario is the rare one where the price changes by the hour for almost every home. In Quebec, the standard residential rate is the same at noon and at midnight. The same is true across most of British Columbia and Manitoba. So before you rush to do laundry at 8 p.m., the first question is not "when are the peak hours?" It is "does my province even have peak hours?" For most Canadians, the honest answer is no.
Why most articles get electricity peak hours wrong
Search "electricity peak hours" and you will find pages that mix three different mistakes. They treat an Ontario rule as a national one. They forget the season flip, so they list winter peak hours in the middle of summer. And they skip the middle price, mid-peak, as if power were only ever cheap or expensive. Each mistake costs the reader money or sends them chasing a saving their province does not even offer.
"Always run appliances after 7 p.m. to beat peak hours." Useless if you live in Quebec or BC, where the price never changes by the hour.
"Check my province first, then my price plan." Peak hours only pay off if your province uses them and you can actually move your usage.
How peak hours electricity pricing actually works
Power is hardest to make when everyone wants it at once. On a hot summer afternoon, air conditioners across Ontario switch on together, and the grid has to fire up its most expensive backup plants to keep up. Time-of-Use pricing, often shortened to TOU, just passes that cost through to your bill. A TOU rate is one that changes with the clock, charging more when the grid is busy and less when it is quiet.
Ontario splits the weekday into three buckets. On-peak is the busy, costly window. Off-peak is the quiet, cheap one, every evening and overnight. Mid-peak sits in between, and it is the one people forget. At 15.7 ¢/kWh, mid-peak is about 60% more than off-peak, so it is not a free zone. Weekends and holidays are off-peak all day, no matter the hour.
Here is the part that confuses everyone. The prices stay the same all year, but the hours flip with the season. In summer the grid strains in the afternoon, so on-peak is the middle of the day. In winter it strains when people wake up and when they get home, so on-peak splits into a morning block and an evening block. The price tag did not move; the clock did. The table below shows both schedules side by side.
| Period | Price | Summer (May 1 to Oct 31) | Winter (Nov 1 to Apr 30) |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-peak | 20.3 ¢/kWh | 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. | 7 to 11 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m. |
| Mid-peak | 15.7 ¢/kWh | 7 to 11 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m. | 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
| Off-peak | 9.8 ¢/kWh | 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., plus all weekends and holidays | 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., plus all weekends and holidays |
The off-peak window is bigger than the peak. Roughly five of every seven days are entirely off-peak, because every weekend is. The "expensive" time is a few weekday hours, not most of your life.
What are the peak electricity hours in Ontario?
The electricity peak hours in Ontario depend on the time of year, and right now the summer schedule is running. From May 1 to October 31, on-peak is weekdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., the afternoon stretch when air conditioning is heaviest. From November 1 to April 30, the peak splits in two: weekday mornings from 7 to 11 a.m. and weekday evenings from 5 to 7 p.m., the cold-weather rush when homes heat up and light up.
During those windows you pay 20.3 ¢/kWh, the top rate. The cards below give you the on-peak times at a glance for each season. If it is a weekend or a holiday, ignore all of this: you are off-peak no matter the hour.
Weekdays only, May 1 to Oct 31. One afternoon block, when A/C runs hardest.
Weekdays only, Nov 1 to Apr 30. Two blocks: the morning and the evening rush.
Off-peak electricity hours in Ontario: the cheapest window
The time-of-use off-peak hours are the easiest part to remember, because they barely change. Off-peak runs every weekday from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., and then covers all day Saturday, Sunday, and statutory holidays. The rate is 9.8 ¢/kWh, less than half the on-peak price, and it is the same window in summer and winter.
This is where the real saving lives, and it asks very little of you. Moving a single dryer load from a weekday afternoon to after dinner cuts its electricity cost by about half. You do not need an app or a schedule, just a rough habit: heavy jobs after 7 p.m. on weekdays, or any time on the weekend.
| Appliance | Energy used | Off-peak cost | On-peak cost | You save |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clothes dryer (one load) | 3 kWh | $0.29 | $0.61 | $0.32 |
| Dishwasher (one cycle) | 1.5 kWh | $0.15 | $0.30 | $0.16 |
| Electric oven (one hour) | 2 kWh | $0.20 | $0.41 | $0.21 |
| Central A/C (three hours) | 4.5 kWh | $0.44 | $0.91 | $0.47 |
| EV top-up charge | 12 kWh | $1.18 | $2.44 | $1.26 |
If you cannot move your usage, peak hours are the wrong fight
Here is what almost no guide tells you. In Ontario you are allowed to choose your price plan, and most people never do. Time-of-Use is just the default you were handed. You can switch, for free, to a Tiered plan, where the price is flat all day (10.3 ¢/kWh up to a monthly limit, then 12.5 ¢/kWh) with no peak hours at all. You can also switch to Ultra-Low Overnight, which drops the overnight rate to 3.9 ¢/kWh but pushes the weekday on-peak up to 39.1 ¢/kWh.
That changes the whole question. Time-of-Use only rewards you if you can actually shift your power use to the evening. But if you work from home, or the kids are home all day, your heaviest use lands right in the 20.3 ¢/kWh peak, every weekday. For that household, the flat Tiered price can quietly beat Time-of-Use, because it never charges the peak penalty in the first place. You win by changing the plan, not by watching the clock.
The flip side: if you own an electric vehicle and charge it overnight, Ultra-Low Overnight at 3.9 ¢/kWh is the cheapest power in the province, about a tenth of its own on-peak rate. The right plan depends on your life, not on a generic "avoid peak hours" tip.
See the peak hours, and what shifting a chore saves
Pick the season and the plan to colour a full weekday from midnight to midnight: green is cheap, amber is mid, red is the costly peak. Then pick a chore to see what it costs at peak versus the cheapest window. Every number here also appears in the tables above, so nothing is hidden inside the tool.
Overnight plan is the same all year.
Weekday view. Weekends and statutory holidays are off-peak all day on both Time-of-Use and the overnight plan. Hover a bar for its exact hour and price.
¢/kWh, the costliest hour.
¢/kWh, .
Just by waiting for the cheap window.
Educational estimate using Ontario Energy Board prices in effect 2025-11-01 to 2026-10-31. Appliance energy use is a typical figure and varies by model. Prices apply to Ontario only; most other provinces have no peak hours.
Where this quietly costs Canadians money
The losses are rarely dramatic. They are small habits, repeated. An Ontario family runs the dishwasher right after dinner cleanup at 6 p.m. in winter, smack in the evening peak, when waiting until 7 p.m. would cut that load to off-peak. A remote worker does three loads of laundry across a Tuesday afternoon, paying the top rate each time, on a plan that punishes exactly that pattern.
The bigger trap is the one nobody sees: staying on the wrong plan for years. A household that cannot shift its usage keeps paying peak prices on Time-of-Use when a flat Tiered plan would have skipped the penalty entirely. Meanwhile, an Ontario reader copies a "best peak hours" tip into their head, then moves to Quebec and keeps timing the dryer for a peak that does not exist there. The fix in both cases is the same: match the plan, and the habit, to your actual province and your actual day.
What to actually do, in order
These steps follow straight from how peak hours work. Notice that "obsess over the clock" is not step one. The plan comes first, then the habit. Choosing or switching a price plan only exists in Ontario and Alberta; elsewhere you are on a single regulated rate.
If you are in Quebec, BC, Manitoba, or most other provinces, the price is the same all day and none of the timing advice applies. This is the step that saves the most wasted effort.
Your bill or your utility account shows whether you are on Time-of-Use, Tiered, or Ultra-Low Overnight. Most homes are on the Time-of-Use default and never knew they could change it.
Can move usage to evenings or weekends? Time-of-Use rewards you. Home all day and cannot shift? A flat Tiered plan may beat it. Charge an EV overnight? Ultra-Low Overnight is the cheapest power going.
Run heavy jobs (laundry, dishwasher) after 7 p.m. on weekdays, or any time on the weekend. Pre-cool or pre-heat the home just before peak, then ease off during it.
Ontario lets you change your Regulated Price Plan at no cost through your utility. It is a phone call or an online form, not a contract or a new supplier.
The bottom line for 2026
Electricity peak hours are real, but smaller and more local than the internet makes them sound. In Ontario, on-peak power costs 20.3 ¢/kWh against 9.8 ¢/kWh off-peak, the peak windows flip with the season, and roughly five of every seven days are already off-peak. In most of the rest of Canada, the whole idea simply does not exist, because the price never changes by the hour.
This matters now because the easiest win is not learning the clock, it is checking your province and your plan. A household that cannot move its usage saves more by switching off Time-of-Use than by ever watching the hour. The home that comes out ahead is the one on the plan that fits its real day, then nudging the heavy chores into the cheap window almost for free.
Frequently asked questions
See how electricity is priced where you live
Peak hours are an Ontario rule, not a national one. Open your province to see how its electricity is priced, what the rates are, and which providers serve you.
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