The charge allows PGW to adjust its bills up or down between October and May when the actual weather departs significantly from normal weather patterns.
The Philadelphia Gas Works bill that arrived this month took Elise Ridley’s breath away. PGW said she owed $235.82 for gas service for the previous month at her Point Breeze studio apartment, three times more than she had ever been billed before, even during the coldest winter months. A year ago, the same bill for her apartment was about $27.
Across Philadelphia, many PGW customers are reporting staggering gas bills at a time of the year when heating costs typically go into a long summer snooze. Many fear that the soaring cost of energy, which has impacted everything from gasoline to heating oil, is to blame. “This seems totally outrageous,” said Jeannine Baldomero who got a $130 bill this month for her Spring Garden apartment, including a $93 weather normalization charge. She said the WNA alone was bigger than any previous bill she had received. “In all the years I’ve been a PGW customer, I have never seen anything like this.”
Emma Stenger, a Roxborough resident, said she puzzled over her $116 bill for half an hour, trying to comprehend how her modest usage could account for such a big amount. Then she came across a $60.50 weather normalization charge on the third page of the bill. Customers should first reach out to the utility if they have a problem with their bill. But if they are unsatisfied with the response, they can file a complaint with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, which regulates PGW, said Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, the commission’s spokesman.
The weather normalization adjustment applies to the bills of about half of PGW’s 509,000 customers, including those on budget plans. It doesn’t apply to non-heating customers, since the use of gas stoves, water heaters or driers should not be impacted by weather. Nor does the WNA apply to households enrolled in the Customer Assistance Program for low-income families.
“It would be nice to know how it is calculated,” said Bent. “My friends in Wynnefield Heights were charged only $40.” Baldomero said the customer service representative recited from a script. “The woman said, ‘I don’t even understand that. So I’m just going to read it directly to you.’ And then of course, I didn’t understand it, either.” Baldomero filed a dispute with the utility over the charge.
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