What to do if your ‘weather normalized’ PGW bill is not normal

Philadelphia Gas Works customers have seen a “weather normalization adjustment” (WNA) on their bills for 20 years. Usually it’s a small amount and gets little attention.

But in June, some PGW customers started getting bills with unusually large WNAs, in some cases quintupling their bills. The city-owned gas utility does not acknowledge that the bills are in error. Here’s what to do if you think there is something wrong.

PGW is allowed to adjust its bills up or down from October through May to reflect differences between the actual weather and normal weather. The idea behind the weather normalization adjustment is to stabilize finances for the city-owned utility even when the weather gets unusually warm or cool and revenue falls short.

For 270,000 PGW customers who are eligible to get the weather adjustment, the charge (or credit) appears on Page 3 of your PGW bill under a breakdown of charges. When the weather during the billing cycle was warmer than normal, the WNA appears as a charge. If the weather was cooler, it appears as a credit, with a minus sign.

PGW uses a complicated formula to arrive at a WNA for each customer. The formula can be found near the end of the utility’s 157-page tariff, its formal list of rates and fees.

The weather normalization adjustment changes for every billing cycle, depending upon PGW’s calculation of each customer’s expected heating usage and how much the weather deviated from normal.

Your first step is to reach out to PGW’s customer service department at 215-235-5100 during normal business hours. PGW says it can put you on a payment plan if you are struggling to pay the bill.

If you believe your charge is in error, you can dispute it with PGW. If you are unsatisfied with PGW’s response, you can file a complaint with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Services. You can file the complaint online, or call 1-800-692-7380. You must contact the utility before you file a complaint through the PUC.

Two types of complaints can be filed with the PUC — informal or formal.

Informal complaints include residential billing issues, service quality and payment arrangement requests. The PUC staff will intervene and attempt to resolve the problem with the utility.

Formal complaints include rate protests. A formal complaint launches what essentially is a judicial process before a PUC administrative law judge, which often takes a long time to resolve and will probably involve the utility’s lawyers. The PUC recommends that customers first attempt an informal complaint.

The Pennsylvania Office of Consumer Advocate announced on Wednesday that it is investigating PGW’s high charges, and encouraged customers who have questions about their energy bills, including the WNA, to reach out to its consumer hotlie at 1-800-684-6560 Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. or email consumer@paoca.org.

This story was updated to include information about the consumer advocate’s investigation.