As a community-owned utility, ALP Utilities provides electric and water service to residential customers throughout Alexandria.
Below you’ll find information about rates, billing, starting and stopping service and other helpful resources for residential electric customers.
If you would like to report an outage or have a question, please call our office at 320-763-6501.
Helpful Links
Helpful Links
Utility Rates & Fees
Start/Stop Service
To start or stop residential electric service, please contact ALP prior to your move-in, closing or move-out date. You may call our office at 320-763-6501 or visit us in person during normal business hours.
When starting service, you’ll be asked to:
- Complete a service application
- Provide valid identification
- Provide proof of satisfactory credit history with former utility, or pay a residential service deposit
Acceptable credit history must show 12 consecutive months of on-time utility payments within the last 12 months.
If acceptable credit documentation is not provided, a $200.00 residential service deposit will be required prior to service connection.
Deposits are refunded after 12 months of consecutive on-time payments made by the account holder (not a third party.) If service is stopped prior to 12 months, the deposit will be applied to the final bill, and any remaining balance will be refunded.
Our Customer Service team is happy to assist you with any questions about starting or stopping service.
New Construction
Planning a new home, shop or addition within ALP's service area? We're here to help you get power to your property, safely and on time.
How to get started
1. Check service availability. Customers planning new construction should first check ALP's Service Territory Map or contact our office to confirm service availability for their location.
2. Complete the new construction application. All new buildings must submit a New Construction Application for electrical service before power can be provided.
3. Review deposit requirements. A service deposit may be required. (Commercial projects have specific deposit guidelines, please contact us for details.)
Questions?
Give us a call at (320) 763-6501 or stop by our office at 1015 34th Ave E, Alexandria. We're happy to walk you through timelines or meter locations.
Off-Peak Heating
The off-peak heating program is available to customers who have electricity as their primary heat source and also have a back-up heating system. Eligible back-up systems include storage heat, fuel oil, natural gas or propane. During times of peak demand, the electric heat source will be shut off (controlled) by a load control receiver and your backup heat source will keep your house warm. If your system is approved for the off-peak heating and you have a large electric water heater (80 gallons and larger), the water heater can also be put on this program. The off-peak load will be metered separately and receive the off-peak rate in the months of October through May. Water heaters will receive a bill credit for the months of June through September. The off-peak rate is considerably lower than regular rates.
Load Management (Demand Response) Program
The load management program was designed to lower our peak demand periods to reduce power supply costs. Short periods of peak demand can drastically drive up power costs. Our program focuses on water heaters and central air conditioners. A load control receiver is installed and connected to the equipment to be cycled (turned off and on) during high demand periods.
By volunteering your water heater and/or your air conditioner, you can help reduce our peak load and costly demand charges. Cycling ensures that everyone in the community is not running equipment at the same time. Your water heater has many gallons of heated water stored. For air conditioners, the furnace fan will remain on during the control event allowing the already cooled air to circulate within your home. For these reasons, most customers are unaware their equipment is being controlled. Call our office at 320-763-6501 to sign up for this program.
Residential Load Management
Never more than 10 minutes at a time! If your air conditioner is running when a peak load is predicted, the compressor (which is the cooling element) of your conditioner may be one of those to be cycled “off” for up to 10 minutes. It will then go back “on” for at least 20 minutes, and will not go “off” again until every other participating air conditioner in town has also been “off” for 10 minutes. During this time the fan will continue to run so that air will continue to circulate throughout the house. During a typical summer, your air conditioner will by cycled about a dozen days. You should never notice the difference.
Absolutely not! The load management switch only interrupts the electrical current to your equipment and will not damage it.
With a properly sized water heater, postponing the reheat cycle should never be noticed. Most heaters can provide hot water for at least four hours after power has been turned “off”. Load management periods are shorter than this and would occur only a few times each month.
If you are a volunteer and you know that you will be using an unusually large volume of hot water–for example, you are going to have a house full of company–you may call our office and we will take your water heater off the cycle program for that period of time. We do not want this program to inconvenience you in any way.
The load management switch is placed outside near the air conditioner or inside the house by the breaker panel.
Two reasons: no inconvenience and maximum savings.
- Because a large amount of hot water is maintained in storage, reheating the water need not occur at any specific time. Short periods without reheating cause no inconvenience.
- Cycling electric water heaters provides maximum savings because they are high demand appliances and are commonly used in homes.
The load management switch is a small box approximately 9″x 7″.
