Run It After 7 PM: Shifting Big Loads to OffPeak Hours
Impact
High
Difficulty
Easy
Speed
Instant
The same load of laundry can cost two different amounts on the same day. It depends only on when you press start. If your home is on time-of-use pricing, electricity has a cheap time, a middle time, and an expensive time, and the big appliances in your house do not care which one they run in. You do, because you pay the bill.
This tip is about one habit: move the loads that can wait to the cheap hours. No new equipment is required. Most dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, and EV chargers already have a delay start or a schedule setting. The work is learning your rate clock, picking the two or three loads worth moving, and setting the timers once.
First, check which pricing you are actually on
Time-of-use shifting only helps if your price changes by time of day. If you pay the same amount per kilowatt-hour at noon and at midnight, moving a load changes nothing on the electricity line of your bill.
In Ontario, residential and small business customers who buy electricity from their utility can choose between three price plans set by the Ontario Energy Board: Time-of-Use (TOU), Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO), and Tiered pricing. With Tiered pricing, the price depends on how much you use in the month, not when you use it, so the clock does not matter. With TOU and ULO, the price depends on when you use electricity. The figures in this article are the Ontario TOU prices. If you live outside Ontario, or you are on a contract with an energy retailer, your prices and hours will be different. Check your own utility bill or rate plan page before you change any habits. The method below still works: find your cheap hours, then move the loads that can wait into them.
The Ontario time-of-use clock
The Ontario Energy Board page lists TOU prices set for November 1, 2025, and those are the current prices shown on that page. Off-peak is 9.8 cents per kWh, mid-peak is 15.7 cents per kWh, and on-peak is 20.3 cents per kWh. On-peak costs a little more than double the off-peak price for the same kilowatt-hour.
The hours change with the season. Summer runs May 1 to October 31. Winter runs November 1 to April 30. Off-peak hours are the same in both seasons. The mid-peak and on-peak blocks swap places, because summer demand peaks in the middle of a hot afternoon and winter demand peaks in the morning and early evening.
| Period | Price | Winter weekdays (Nov 1 to Apr 30) | Summer weekdays (May 1 to Oct 31) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Off-peak | 9.8 cents per kWh | 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. | 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. |
| Mid-peak | 15.7 cents per kWh | 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. | 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. |
| On-peak | 20.3 cents per kWh | 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. | 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
Weekends and holidays are off-peak all day in both seasons. That is why the title of this tip says after 7 p.m. On a weekday, 7 p.m. is the start of off-peak in summer and in winter. If you remember one rule, remember that one: big loads after 7 p.m. on weekdays, or any time on weekends, pay the lowest TOU price in Ontario.
These prices cover the electricity line of the bill. Your bill also has delivery and other charges, and taxes apply. Shifting a load lowers the electricity charge for that load. It does not remove the fixed parts of the bill, so your total bill will fall by less, in percentage terms, than the electricity line for the loads you move.
The one rule to remember
Ontario TOU, weekdays: run big loads after 7 p.m. and before 7 a.m. to pay 9.8 cents per kWh instead of 20.3 cents per kWh on-peak. Weekends and holidays are off-peak all day. Prices and hours on this page are the Ontario Energy Board TOU prices set for November 1, 2025, as listed on the OEB electricity rates page linked at the end of this tip.
What the shift is worth, worked out in full
There is no single savings number that fits every home, because it depends on how much you move and what you would have paid before. So here is the arithmetic instead, using the Ontario prices above. Every example states its size as an assumption. Replace the assumed size with your own if you know it. A simple way to learn the real size of a load in your home is to spend a week with an energy monitoring plug on the appliance and read the kilowatt-hours per cycle.
Example 1: Charging an electric vehicle
Assumption: one charging session adds 30 kWh. At the on-peak price, 30 kWh times 20.3 cents is $6.09. At the off-peak price, 30 kWh times 9.8 cents is $2.94. The difference is $3.15 for that one session. If a household did 12 sessions like that in a month, and every session moved from on-peak to off-peak, the electricity line would be $37.80 lower that month. Most drivers already charge overnight, which is off-peak. The costly mistake is plugging in at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. on a weekday and charging straight through the winter on-peak block, or through the summer evening mid-peak block. Set the car or the charger to start at or after 7 p.m. instead, or later if your car allows a scheduled start.
Example 2: One dishwasher load
Assumption: one load uses 1.2 kWh for the wash cycle. At the on-peak price, 1.2 kWh times 20.3 cents is about $0.24. At the off-peak price, 1.2 kWh times 9.8 cents is about $0.12. The difference is about $0.13 per load. Run daily for 30 days, that is about $3.78 a month. It is a small amount per load, and it costs nothing to get: load the machine after dinner, press delay start, and let it run after 7 p.m. or overnight. If you also skip the heated dry cycle, you cut the load itself as well as its price. See the dishwasher air-dry tip for that part.
Example 3: One laundry load, washer plus dryer
Assumption: one full laundry load uses 3.5 kWh in total for the washer and the dryer together. At the on-peak price, 3.5 kWh times 20.3 cents is about $0.71. At the off-peak price, 3.5 kWh times 9.8 cents is about $0.34. The difference is about $0.37 per load. At eight loads a month, that is about $2.94 a month if every load moved from on-peak to off-peak. Waiting until you have a full load still matters more than timing for laundry, because it cuts the number of loads. Timing is the second step, not a reason to run half-empty machines at night. Washing in cold water also cuts the energy in the wash itself, whenever you run it.
Read those three examples the right way. The EV is the prize, because the load is large. The dishwasher and laundry are worth doing because the delay button makes them free to move, not because any single load changes your month. Add up only the loads you actually move, at the times you actually move them from. Moving a load from mid-peak to off-peak saves 5.9 cents per kWh (15.7 minus 9.8), which is a smaller gain than moving it from on-peak, at 10.5 cents per kWh (20.3 minus 9.8).
Which loads can wait, and which should not
| Load | Can it shift? | How to shift it | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| EV charging | Yes, usually the biggest win | Set a scheduled start at or after 7 p.m. in the car or charger app | Make sure the car still has the charge it needs by morning |
| Dishwasher | Yes | Use delay start so it runs after 7 p.m. or overnight | Scrape and load after dinner so dishes do not sit dirty all day |
| Washing machine | Yes, with care | Delay start to an evening or weekend run, or wash on weekends | Move wet clothes to the dryer or rack promptly so they do not sit damp |
| Clothes dryer | Yes, if someone is home and awake | Run it in the same off-peak block as the wash where you can | Follow your dryer maker guidance on running appliances unattended, and clean the lint filter every load |
| Pool pump, hot tub heating | Yes, if you have them | Put the pump or heater on a timer set for off-peak hours | Keep enough run time for water quality and safety |
| Portable dehumidifier, battery charging, ice maker boost | Often yes | Use a timer plug or the device schedule | Do not shift anything that protects the home from damp or freezing |
| Cooking, heating, and air conditioning while you are using the room | Mostly no | Keep these when you need them, and save with settings instead | Comfort and safety come first; use sensible thermostat setpoints rather than shifting heating or cooling to hours when no one benefits |
| Fridge, freezer, medical equipment, security systems | No | Leave running at all hours | Never delay or switch off loads that keep food safe or people safe |
A smart power strip will not shift a big load for you, because the large appliances above do not run through a strip. Where strips and timer plugs help is with the smaller loads around the edges: chargers, entertainment gear, and anything you want fully off during peak hours and on again later. Treat shifting and switching off as two separate jobs that happen to share the same clock.
A simple way to start this week
Night one: check your last bill and confirm your price plan. In Ontario, your bill and your utility account will say TOU, ULO, or Tiered. If it says Tiered, this tip does not change your electricity price, and you would need to switch plans for timing to matter. Think that choice through with your real usage pattern before switching, because a plan that rewards night use only helps a household that can actually move use into the night.
Night two: set the dishwasher delay start once. Most machines remember the habit quickly because the button is in the same place every night.
This weekend: do the laundry in one block. Weekends are off-peak all day in Ontario, so a Saturday laundry block gets the lowest price without asking anyone to stay up late or get up early.
If you have an EV: set the scheduled start tonight, then check the charge level in the morning for the first few days until you trust the setting.
After a month, compare the on-peak, mid-peak, and off-peak kilowatt-hours on your new bill with the bill before. Ontario bills break use into those periods for TOU customers, so you can see whether the loads actually moved. If the on-peak block barely changed, the timers did not stick, and the fix is usually a setting, not more effort.
If you are working through a bigger home energy plan, shifting pairs well with the help listed on our grants and rebates page, where a planned upgrade can be timed with available programs instead of rushed during a peak-price month.
Limits worth knowing before you promise yourself a number
First, small loads give small returns. Shifting a phone charger saves almost nothing. Spend your attention on loads measured in kilowatt-hours, not watts.
Second, off-peak does not mean free. At 9.8 cents per kWh, a wasted kilowatt-hour still costs money. Cutting a load you do not need beats moving it to a cheaper hour.
Third, do not trade sleep, safety, or damp clothes for a few cents. Run noisy machines when your household rules allow it, follow appliance maker guidance about unattended use, and keep heating, cooling, and medical loads on the schedule people need.
Fourth, prices and hours change. The Ontario Energy Board sets these prices on a yearly cycle. Before you quote a figure from this tip to anyone, check the current table on the Ontario Energy Board electricity rates page. Readers outside Ontario should use their own utility rate page the same way: same method, different clock, different prices.
Start with the EV if you have one, add the dishwasher delay tonight, and put laundry on weekends. Those three moves cover most of what a typical home can shift, they cost nothing to set up, and you can verify the result on your next bill.