Charlotte customers shocked by sudden spike in natural gas bills. ‘Ridiculous.’
This story was updated Wednesday, February 3, 2021:
Some Charlotte residents are expressing shock and anger on social media after their Piedmont Natural Gas bills doubled or tripled this winter over the same time last year.
“Ours was 3xs the norm without any additional usage!” a south Charlotte resident posted on NextDoor with an angry face emoji.
“Omg yes!” another resident posted. “I literally just opened mine ... I can’t believe it! It can’t be right!”
“Crazy,” a homeowner posted after she said her monthly bill jumped from $100 in December to $257 in January.
“Ridiculous,” wrote another south Charlotte homeowner of her bill.
“I thought someone must be stealing my gas somehow,” a north Charlotte homeowner posted before realizing everyone else was in the same boat. “Now that I see others are having the same issue, it is a bit reassuring, but certainly not good.”
Piedmont Natural Gas, a subsidiary of Charlotte-based Duke Energy, acknowledges that bills have increased considerably for many customers. A company spokesman on Tuesday offered a multitude of reasons why. Two officials with the Public Staff of the North Carolina Utilities Commission confirmed the reasons to The Charlotte Observer.
Why natural gas bills have spiked
▪ Higher usage: This is the most significant reason why bills climb, Piedmont spokesman Jason Wheatley said in an email to the Observer, “and colder weather typically increases the amount of natural gas that a residential customer consumes.
“Many customers are experiencing December bills being 2 or 3 times higher than their November bill,” he said. “November was a particularly warm month in North Carolina. Charlotte had 26 days of highs above 60 degrees in November, with 14 of those days in the mid-70s and one day that reached 82 degrees.
“The abrupt return to seasonal weather made a stark difference in customer bills,” he said.
Past Decembers have been far warmer, said Julie Perry, accounting manager for the natural gas division of the N.C. Utilities Commission Public Staff. “We’ve had Christmas where we’ve been in shorts,” she said.
The average temperature in December was 43.5 degrees, which includes the temperature throughout each day, not just the highs or lows, said meteorologist Andrew Kimball of the National Weather Service office in Greer, S.C..
That was 1.1 degrees above the 30-year average temperature in December, he said. Still, December 2019 was far warmer at 47.5 degrees on average, Kimball said.
▪ The pandemic: Many people who might have lowered their thermostat during the day when they were away at work are now working from home, Wheatley said. “The colder temperatures in December may have been where that increased daytime usage came into play for the first time for many customers,” he said.
Because of the pandemic, only 10% to 15% of offices in Charlotte were occupied by employees at the end of December, the Observer previously reported, citing Brian Landes, director of research for the Carolinas with commercial real estate firm JLL.
A few tenants in uptown left their leases, including the Observer, but most kept their offices.
Statewide, 38.3% of people responding to the latest bi-weekly U.S. Census “pulse survey” said they are working from home, according to Chuck McShane, senior vice president of business analytics and data for the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance.
The latest survey was for the Jan. 4-18 period, he said. The survey is not broken down by industry or city, he said.
▪ Rise in wholesale cost of natural gas: The wholesale cost of natural gas increased 50% in November, according to Neha Patel, an engineer with the energy division of the N.C. Utilities Commission Public Staff. Utilities directly pass on that cost to customers, she said.
“We pass through to customers the commodity cost of natural gas 1:1 without any markup from the company,” Piedmont’s Wheatley said in his email.
“For the majority of 2020, North Carolina customers benefited from a lower cost of natural gas, which had decreased from $2.25 to $2 per dekatherm in January 2020, and bills were lowered accordingly.”
In November, he said, the benchmark price of natural gas jumped from $2 to $2.50 per dekatherm, which is how natural gas is measured.
▪ Tax credit expires: Piedmont and other public utilities were required to pass along savings to their customers from federal tax reform that slashed what companies paid on their profits from 35 percent to 21 percent, the Observer reported in 2018.
Piedmont offered credit on customer bills over 13 months, according to Wheatley. The credit expired on Dec. 1, Patel said.
All of the reasons joined together in leaving customers with higher bills, Patel said.
The factors contributed to an increase of about 17.7% on bills from December 2019 to December 2020, according to Wheatley.
“However, to put this into perspective, in a comparison of December 2017 to December 2020, residential rates increased a modest 0.3% over the three-year period,” he said.
Help paying your natural gas bill
Those struggling to pay their bills can arrange to pay off their outstanding balance over time, according to Piedmont.
▪ Log into your piedmontng.com account to make such arrangements, or call 800-752-7504 between 7:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. weekdays.
▪ Community action agencies can help find financial support from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services’ Crisis Intervention Program and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
▪ Crisis Assistance Ministry offers curbside emergency rent and utility financial help for Mecklenburg County residents at 500-A Spratt St. in Charlotte, 8:30 a.m.–5 p.m. weekdays. Details: (704) 371-3001; CrisisAssistance.org.
Home energy saving tips
Piedmont Natural Gas says residents can make their homes more energy efficient by:
▪ Insulating ceiling, floors and walls.
▪ Setting the water heater to 120 degrees Fahrenheit or installing an on-demand or tankless water heater that heats water only as needed.
▪ Installing a “Smart” or programmable thermostat.
▪ Caulking, sealing and weather stripping seams, cracks and openings to the outside, which can save 10% to 20% on bills.
▪ Sealing air ducts from the home’s furnace and central air conditioner.
Colder weather sticking around
Charlotte is in for another bout of cold weather through the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.
The low early Thursday was expected to plummet into the mid-20s, according to a weather service forecast.
While Friday morning’s low is expected to reach 41 degrees, a low of 31 is forecast early Saturday, 35 early Sunday and 32 early Monday.
Highs should reach a more seasonal 52 on Thursday, 55 with rain likely on Friday, 52 under sunny skies on Saturday, and 51 on a mostly sunny Sunday.
This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 6:00 AM.