Our co-op recently implemented monthly demand charges. They reduced kwh rates but added the monthly on and off peak demand service fees. In theory the bill should be about the same if your using any amount of electricity but I'm pretty sure this was all about getting money out of their 10% of customers on solar. Prior to the change we rarely paid more than the connection fee of $46. Now even if we are a net producer and sending more back to the grid than we use we still get hit with the demand charge. They take your highest 1 hour kwh usage of the month during on peak time and multiply it by $7.50 and highest 1 hour of usage during off peak by $1.50. There are times we are getting billed an extra $100 or more a month for demand charges even though we may send more to the grid than we use.
