Utility Letting Gas Customers Defer High Winter Bills

The Boston Globe
By Peter J. Howe

February 14, 2001

KeySpan Energy Delivery, the new corporate parent of Boston Gas, Colonial Gas, and Essex Gas, will offer an unprecedented midwinter enrollment period for its ''balanced billing plan,'' allowing people to defer some soaring winter heating costs to their spring and summer bills.

Normally, KeySpan requires people to sign up in August. The plan lets them pay, for example, $1,200 in yearly heating costs in equal bills of $100 a month, instead of getting large bills in winter and much smaller ones in summer.

Because of the recent 50 percent-plus increases in gas prices, KeySpan will allow more than 550,000 customers to sign up for this plan in midseason. This effectively allows people to defer some winter heating costs to summer, when gas bills usually drop because usage drops.

A KeySpan spokesman, Michael J. Connors, said that bills arriving in coming days will include two billing amounts if a customer calls to sign up for the deferred billing: the actual bill for January, and the lower ''balanced billing'' cost, which would appear on bills through August.

Gas customers across Massachusetts are expected to get a shock when they open bills reflecting increases approved by state regulators Feb. 1.

Boston Gas's charge per therm, for example, has soared to $1.06, up from 68 cents in fall. The typical home uses about 1,150 therms in a normal year.

About 120,000 of KeySpan's 700,000 customers already use the balanced-billing plan.

KeySpan will temporarily lose some revenue by allowing people to defer payments, but it expects to partially offset that cost by having fewer people fall behind. People who overpay for gas under the balanced plan will get refunds or credits in fall.

In another announcement involving soaring energy costs, Wainwright Bank and Trust Co. said it is offering reduced-cost home equity loans for people who install solar energy devices to reduce demand for electricity or heating fuel.

The bank's ''Green Loan'' package, offered in conjunction with the Mass. Energy Consumers Alliance and Solar Boston, will offer rates that are 1 percentage point below the cost of a home equity loan for qualifying solar projects, further reduced by 0.25 percent if loans are deducted from a Wainwright checking account.

To qualify, borrowers must work with Solar Boston or the alliance to plan and install the solar-energy system. Solar devices can cut home and water heating bills significantly, but usually require investing thousands up front.

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