Natural Gas Savings Passed on to Customers
Electric prices will remain the same
Natural gas prices have dropped across the nation, allowing GRU to reduce their price to direct natural gas customers.
In October, a typical customer using 35 therms of natural gas paid $60.32. In November, that customer will pay $57.82 for the same amount of gas, for a savings of $2.50.
Electric prices will remain unchanged from October. A typical electric customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity paid $134.60 in October and will pay the same amount in November.
Although natural gas pricing has declined, coal prices, which account for about 70 percent of GRU’s generating capacity, have remained high, decreasing the impact gas savings have had on recovering costs carried by the utility during the summer months to produce electricity.
During the summer, when coal and natural gas prices soared, GRU chose to absorb a portion of the additional fuel costs versus passing along all the higher cost to customers through the fuel adjustment portion of the electric rates with the expectation that national fuel markets would level out and become less volatile.
GRU General Manager Bob Hunzinger said, “Going forward, we are hopeful that natural gas costs remain lower and coal costs decline to allow us to pass those savings along to customers. We are constantly looking to improve our generating plant efficiencies along with optimizing our fuel and electricity purchases and sales opportunities to benefit all of our customers.”
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