Marketplace Today Blog

A cold start to the winter pushed the typical residential customer’s natural gas heating bill up about 17 percent for December 2008 as compared to normal, according to Wisconsin Public Service Corp.

Coupled with the normal increase in heating bills of nearly 30 percent from November to December, the colder weather means that customers saw significant increases in this month’s bills over last month’s bills — probably as much as $60 to $100 or more depending on customer use.

“It’s been an almost brutal winter so far,” said WPS spokesperson Kerry Spees. “Heating bills increase in direct relationship to the temperature unless customers change their patterns. So the heating cost increase is due to the 17-percent colder temperatures reported by the National Weather Service.”

Spees noted that the Weather Service was still predicting a good chance of “average” temperatures for the winter and that some moderation would be good for customers. “It’s still early, so we don’t know what to expect for the rest of the year in terms of heating costs. Natural gas costs are just about the same as last year, so Mother Nature will dictate whether we have to spend significantly more than last year or not. I’m hoping for a mild January and February.”