Tohoku Electric Power will raise electricity rates for every voltage class of customer from November 1, 2026, the day its grid subsidiary, Tohoku Electric Network, puts a revised wheeling charge for retailers and generators using its transmission and distribution network into effect. The utility filed the required change to its regulated low-voltage tariff with Japan's economy minister on September 28, the same day it disclosed the broader rate revision.
For a household on the standard regulated plan, with a 30-amp contract and monthly usage of 260 kilowatt-hours, the basic charge rises ¥41.11 per 10 amps and the energy charge rises ¥1.39 per kilowatt-hour, adding ¥485 to the monthly bill, a 5.91% increase. Customers on the equivalent free-rate residential plan face the same ¥485 increase. Low-voltage power customers, typically small businesses, see a steeper 7.29% rise because their contracts carry a larger basic-charge increase of ¥100.01 per kilowatt of contracted capacity, calculated using a 90% power factor.
| Plan (customer type) | Monthly usage | Current bill | New bill | Increase | Increase rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard household plan (regulated) | 260kWh | ¥8,204 | ¥8,689 | +¥485 | +5.91% |
| Higher-capacity household plan (regulated) | 810kWh | ¥30,640 | ¥32,300 | +¥1,660 | +5.42% |
| Low-voltage power (regulated, small business) | 340kWh | ¥14,106 | ¥15,135 | +¥1,029 | +7.29% |
| Yorisou+eNet Value (free-rate household) | 260kWh | ¥8,149 | ¥8,634 | +¥485 | +5.95% |
Larger customers face the same mechanics at bigger scale. An office building or commercial facility on the standard business-power plan, with a 90-kilowatt contract and 20,700 kilowatt-hours of monthly usage, will pay about ¥17,000 more a month, a 2.46% increase. Two industrial and office model cases with 1,000-kilowatt contracts show monthly bills rising from about ¥8.47mn to ¥8.68mn (+2.39%) for an office or commercial building using 270,000 kilowatt-hours a month, and from about ¥9.54mn to ¥9.76mn (+2.25%) for a factory using 320,000 kilowatt-hours.
Tohoku Electric expects the wheeling-charge revision, including its effect on the charges other retail and generation companies pay to use its subsidiary's grid, to improve its consolidated results by roughly ¥30bn in the year to March 2027. The company has not folded that estimate into a full-year guidance figure. It says fuel prices, developments in the Middle East, and swings in its network subsidiary's supply-and-demand balancing account remain too uncertain, and it will update its consolidated outlook once it can produce a reasonable estimate.