As is the case with electricity, gas deregulation has resulted in competition which helps lower the cost of gas and increase the choices available to consumers.

The process of lessening the amount of government regulation and oversight applied to utility companies. As with other industries that have been deregulated, natural gas deregulation has increased customer choices. Before deregulation, utilities charged their customers for all the necessary steps to get the natural gas from the production field to the customer’s home or business. This included purchasing the natural gas, delivering it to the customer, measuring the customer’s use, providing emergency service, and billing the customer. The complete package of services has been unbundled so that a customer can choose to separate the gas purchasing transaction from the delivery transaction.

Any party that has executed a Supplier Agreement with a utility to purchase gas supplies to customers.

These charges cover certain costs of providing your service-depreciation, taxes, maintenance, and repair of customer lines, and customer-related expenses, like meter reading and billing.

The gas supply is purchased on your behalf and moved through your local utility to your meter. The Distribution or Delivery Service Charge covers the cost of moving your gas. This charge is the same amount whether you buy your gas supply from a natural gas supplier or from the local utility. The monthly Distribution or Delivery Service Charge is based upon the amount of gas you use.

This is the cost of the natural gas commodity and the cost of transporting it to the Utility system. This charge can be used as a benchmark for comparing prices.

Single billing combines Utility charges and natural gas supplier gas charges onto one bill. The bill can either be provided by Utility or by the supplier depending on the supplier contract.

Two bills are generated. The Utility sends the customer a bill for the System Charge and Distribution or Delivery Service Charges, and the natural gas supplier sends the customer a bill for the gas.

On a variable price plan, the price per therm can change monthly, weekly or daily depending on market conditions or other factors.

A fixed price plan allows you to contract with a gas supplier for natural gas to be billed at the same amount per therm for a specified period of time.