Unexplained changes

[livingdeb]

LiveJournal's default posting mode for me is now "Rich text" instead of "HTML." That's annoying.

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My gas company increased their "customer charge," a constant monthly charge, 25% this month. But they also reduced their "delivery charge," a charge based on gas quantity used, 58%.

In really cold months, this could lead to a small reduction in my total bill. Most months, these changes mean a small increase, though ($1.10 extra this month over what it would have been with the old numbers).

What reduced the delivery costs? What increased the fixed costs ("bill processing, meter reading, meter equipment, service line maintenance and customer service personnel")? There is no explanation.

Comments

Gas Rates

[(Anonymous)]

Texas Gas Service asked for about a $3.5 million rate increase in February. A settlement between the City and TGS was approved at the June 18th Council meeting. It allowed for an approximately $1.0 million rate increase. The annual residential revenue increase is about 1.7%.

The last time Texas Gas Service asked for a rate change was in 1993. Since then they've invested about $130 million in their system. Just based on what the rates did and what was said in the council meetings, I'd guess that most of that investment was in metering equipment and there were increased customer service costs - that is what would be billed on a per month basis. The drop in per quantity rates probably reflects depreciation among assets 'in the ground' - distribution equipment, that sort of thing. They also reduced depreciation rates, which annual expenses. (They get a percentage of their net physical assets, plus 100% of costs which are found prudent. The value of those assets falls through depreciation, so if most of their distribution equipment is older, much of its original value would have depreciated away, already.)

Their original request was even more skewed - a monthly charge of $11.25 plus a per ccf charge of $0.0579, compared to the approved rates of $9.75 per month plus $0.0826 per ccf. These rates just pay for the utility's non-fuel costs - a fuel factor is added which pays for the actual wholesale cost of the gas. Add to this a few riders for conservation programs and so-forth.

RVMan

Re: Gas Rates

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the explanation. Depreciation of old distribution equipment and addition of above-ground equipment, mostly for metering.

My non-fuel rate ("delivery charge") looks like 0.103 per ccf, though, down from about 0.178 or 0.179.