Understanding Your Natural Gas Bill
When you go home at the end of the workday, you might turn on your gas stove to cook dinner or pop some veggies into your natural gas oven. You may start your natural gas dryer to finish that load of laundry quickly and get a bath going for the kids (or yourself…who doesn’t need a relaxing bubble bath every now and then?).
And when you sit down at the kitchen table to take care of your expenses, you might see your natural gas utility bill among them. If you’re using natural gas for heating, cooking and clothes drying, the statistics say that you and your family are saving an average of $1,132 per year. In fact, families in the U.S. have saved a total of $125 billion over 10 the last years by using affordable, reliable and abundant natural gas in their homes.
In your natural gas utility bill, you will see a total amount due that reflects your usage over the span of the billing cycle, and that may spark curiosity about what exactly goes into the making of your natural gas bill?
A natural gas bill includes more than just the cost of the natural gas itself, although the amount of natural gas you use – your purchased gas – represents about 41% of your bill. The cost to deliver the natural gas to your home accounts for about 51% of your bill, which includes important maintenance, safety and operations activity to help ensure you and your neighbors have access to the reliable, efficient natural gas you expect every day. And the remaining 8% goes to federal, state and local taxes.
Natural gas utilities work hard to help ensure customers and communities have the energy they need through the use of customer service and education programs. For example, utilities may offer energy audits that allow a technician to find spots in a home that can be tightened up to help save energy and costs. And for households who may have trouble paying their bill, there are a variety of other programs that utilities have in place to help, including a variety of payment plans, budget billing, or resources on how to access the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). LIHEAP is a federal block grant program that provides financial assistance to low and fixed-income individuals for fuel and utility bills, as well as low-cost weatherization and energy-related home repairs.
From transporting the fuel to maintaining customer support programs, each part of a customer’s bill helps ensure that natural gas fuels our communities affordably, reliably and safely.