This winter will likely become Cincinnati third-warmest in history.
Nathan Perry, the utility business manager for the city of Hamilton, said the city’s typical residential customer has used about 30 percent less natural gas this month compared to the average December.
“In December of 2014, the average residential gas bill … was approximately $75,” Perry said. This year’s average December bill “is projected to be approximately $52.”
Duke Energy spokesman Lee Freedman said it’s too early to know how low Duke’s utility bills will be for December.
“It’s logical to think that your January energy bill, which accounts for your December usage, will be low because of the warmer temperatures,” Freedman said. “That could be the case depending on how you use energy at home. Also, natural gas commodity prices are significantly lower today than they were a year ago, and that could contribute to a lower bill.”
Freedman said while you may have used less energy on heating, your next bill could be higher due to holiday light displays, visitors staying at your house, spending more time at home than school or work, and additional cooking and laundry.
Freedman and Perry noted the gas cost recovery rates were lowered on their customers’ bills because natural-gas costs have dropped in recent months.
“We’ve lowered it from 10 cents per 100 ccf (hundred cubic feet of gas) to 5 cents,” Perry said. The impact: “In 2015, the average bill was $50.59, and beginning in December of 2015, we project the average bill will be $47.44. Early this year the gas cost recovery rate was dropped from 16 cents to 10 cents, as the city passed its natural-gas cost savings to customers, he said.
Jeffrey Diver, executive director of Supports to Encourage Low-income Families (SELF), which administers the Home Energy Assistance Program that helps people pay their winter utility bills, says 33 percent fewer families have received the assistance from Nov. 1 through Tuesday than during that same period last year.
This year, 1,018 Butler County families have received the assistance, compared with 1,526 last year.
“Certainly the weather has played a role in reducing the need for this emergency program,” he said. But other factors, including Duke’s Percentage of Income Payment Plan, have helped people afford their winter heating bills.
People are less likely to be in emergency shut-off status when they’re on the PIPP program, Diver said. He said Hamilton does not have a similar program, so “low income people in Hamilton still struggle with paying their bills in Hamilton, and they don’t have a program to fall back on, like PIPP-plus.”
“So low-income families are more likely to go into a crisis situation in Hamilton and require the HEAP program, than they are with Duke,” he said.
“We historically have been very low-cost compared to Duke and other local competitors on the natural-gas side, and that’s helpful to our customers,” Perry responded.
“We encourage any low-income household in Butler County that is having trouble paying their heating utilities to contact SELF to determine what they might be eligible for,” Diver said. “There are still a large number of low-income families that need utility assistance.”
At the Ace Hardware on Cincinnati Dayton Road in West Chester Twp., sales of road salt, ice melt and snow shovels have been very weak. But store manager Mark Schneider isn’t worried. He’s sure they’ll snowball soon enough.
“We’ve still got a couple of tons (of salt and ice melt) sitting here,” Schneider said. “If the weather stays this decent, there’ll be people starting to do things again. They’ll be painting, inside,” he said.
It’s rare for there to be no measurable snow through December, he said. “But when it does, it always works itself out in January or February — just prolonging the inevitable.”
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