AbstractExtreme value distributions are seldom used in economics, despite what seems to be a natural application to peak demand pricing. This paper estimates the effect of an individual peak demand charge which is a component of the standard industrial electricity rate structure. The extreme value distribution is used in forming the likelihood function of individual peak demand which is then estimated on a sample of five Ontario cement firms from 1970–1977. Goodness‐of‐fit tests tend to support the use of the extreme value distrib