A rate a fixed price paid for a service; in our case, a rate is the price you pay for how much water, power or wastewater service you use. For example, if you consume 100 kWh of electricity, and your rate for electricity use is $0.01 per kWh, your charge for that electricity is $1.

Different types of customers have different rates, due to the different costs of providing them their services. You can look at the Rates, Charges and Fees document on this webpage to see what rates you pay.

We regularly evaluate the costs of (1) providing reliable, high-quality water, power and wastewater services and (2) properly maintaining the infrastructure that provides those services. We determine the costs of providing every type of customer with these services, and work to ensure our rates for each customer type cover those costs each year.

Every year we recommend these rates to the Loveland Utilities Commission (LUC), which is responsible for reviewing our proposed rates and ultimately recommending rates they approve to Loveland City Council for final approval and adoption.

Every three years we work with expert rate consultants to review our rates, analyzing the general use of service for each group and comparing it with their unique costs. The analysis of all these rate classes ensures that one customer group does not subsidize another, and keeps our rates fair for everyone.

In order for new rates to be approved, we present our findings to the Loveland Utilities Commission (LUC) for initial approval and ultimately to Loveland City Council for final approval. These organizations review our cost of service and recommended rates so customers can feel confident they’re receiving a fair price.

Here's how the process works:

1. First, annual rate proposals for an upcoming year are presented publicly in the September LUC meeting (open to the public).
2. After LUC approval, resources from the meeting are made available in the LUC meeting packet and passed to City Council, which uses rate study data to form decisions about rate tracks.
3. In October, City Council will hold a final vote on rate proposals (open to the public). Rates are typically approved in October.
4. In November, rates for the following calendar year are published to this webpage.
5. On January 1 of the following year, new rates take effect.

After final LUC and City Council approval, we upload the following year's Rates, Charges and Fees document alongside the current year's rates on this webpage. Once the new year arrives, the page will update to show only active rates. 

We also detail newly approved residential rate changes in our City Update newsletter that comes with your bill in November. Keep an eye out for this newsletter to see the simple explanation, including how the dollars and cents apply to an average household.

If you missed the November City Update newsletter article, you can view all published newsletters online at lovgov.org/CityUpdate. 

Meter readings show the exact consumption figures measured by your electric and water meters. Together these figures calculate your actual electricity and water consumption during your current billing period.

Understanding Demand (kW) vs. Energy Use (kWh)

You may notice a new detail on your bill—Demand (kW). While this is not a charge, we’re providing this information to help you better understand your electricity use.

• Energy Use (kWh): This measures the total amount of electricity you use through the month - like running lights, appliances, and electronics throughout the day.
• Demand (kW): This shows the highest amount of electricity you're using at one time. It reflects how much power is needed when multiple devices are running at once, such as running your air conditioner, dryer, and microwave all at the same time.

By understanding your demand, you can make choices to spread out electricity use and potentially lower your overall energy footprint.

This flat fee is charged each billing period and helps cover the essential services that bring electricity to your home or business—regardless of how much you use. It includes the cost of maintaining the infrastructure that connects you to the grid (like poles, wires, and transformers), as well as meter operations, billing, customer service, and administrative support. Your rate is based on your electrical connection and property type, and this fee ensures we can provide safe, reliable power whenever you need it.it.

Self-Generation Customer Base Fee Structure

Customers with self-generation systems, such as rooftop solar, are charged a higher monthly base fee than standard residential customers. This fee is scaled based on the size of the customer's installed generation system.

The rationale behind this structure is cost recovery. Our regular residential base fee is designed to recover approximately 45% of the fixed costs associated with maintaining the electric grid, including infrastructure, metering, billing, and customer service. The remainder of the fixed costs is typically recovered through the volumetric energy rate (per kWh).

However, self-generation customers consume fewer kilowatt-hours from the grid, which reduces the utility’s ability to recover the full share of fixed costs through energy charges. To ensure cost equity and maintain the financial stability of the utility, the self-generation base fee increases proportionally with the size of the generation system. This approach ensures that all customers, regardless of usage pattern, contribute fairly to the ongoing costs of maintaining a safe and reliable electric grid.

 

This is how much electricity you used. We take the number of kWh of electricity you consumed and multiply it by the per-kWh rate associated with your base rate. Note: Customers with solar are charged differently.

This flat fee is charged each month and pays for the operations that bring you water each month (cost of acquiring, treating and testing water, maintaining infrastructure, customer service, administration, etc). The rate is based on the size of your water tap, your property type and whether you’re inside or outside the city.

This is how much water you used. We take the number of gallons you consumed and multiply it by your per-gallon rate. There's a quirk with your water charge: We charge for every 1000 gallons you consume and round down on your monthly bills. So if you consumed 1300 gallons of water last month, we bill you for 1000 gallons - and add the other 300 gallons to this month's total.

This flat fee is charged each billing period and pays for the operations that treat your wastewater each month (cost of processing wastewater at our treatment plant, customer service, administration, etc). The fee is based on your property is inside our outside our city limits.

Wastewater enters our system after exiting your home or business. Since we don't have a meter measuring wastewater, and because not all water you use makes it to our wastewater system (like water used for irrigation), we instead use an average of your water consumption in December, January and February to calculate a "Winter Quarter Average" or WQA. The WQA, updated each year in March, allows us to best estimate your average indoor water use and is what we use as a maximum sewer charge. Either the WQA or your current water consumption, whichever is lower, is used to calculate your sewer charge for each billing period. We multiply that number by the rate-per-1000-gallons associated with your sewer base rate. 

This flat fee pays for the operations that handle storm drainage city-wide each month – including the maintenance and continued optimization of all runoff infrastructure. The entire Loveland community shares this cost.

This flat fee pays for the operations that support solid waste collection, including administration, maintenance and customer service.

These fees vary depending on the types, quantity and size of trash and recycling carts used at your property. The fees pay for operations that handle collecting and processing your trash and recycling. 

Other council-levied charges, which vary from year to year, will appear here on your bill. These are charges approved by Loveland City Council to all Loveland residents for specific taxpayer-funded city initiatives.

Taxes and Fees is another City Council-approved charge that can vary over time, which funds city initiatives at City Council’s discretion.

Adjustments are unique charges or credits related to your account.