Vectren Energy Delivery of Indiana recently announced it will launch a program to help its Indiana customers lower their total natural gas bills by providing rebates on key appliances as well as the tools help customers better understand how their homes or businesses use energy.
The program is part of a comprehensive Vectren conservation proposal that is the end product of an extended collaboration between Vectren and the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor (OUCC). The company says this new program effectively breaks the linkage between the recovery of fixed service costs and the amount of customer usage and positions Vectren to aggressively assist its customers to find ways to reduce their natural gas bills.
"This is a new day for our Indiana natural gas customers. The approval of the conservation program will enable us to squarely focus on helping our customers reduce usage and therefore save on their bills. This action is also important for our state and country as we continue to look for ways to reduce natural gas demand and increase supply," said Vectren Chairman, President and CEO Niel C. Ellerbrook. "Customers want reliable energy at a predictable cost. This program provides customers the tools they need to individually implement energy efficiency measures and lower their usage. Since approximately 75 percent of each customer's bill is for the cost of gas they use, reducing consumption will produce significant savings."
To assist customers in the reduction of their gas usage, Vectren will begin a public education campaign that will address conservation program awareness and details. Highlights of the conservation program include a furnace and thermostat rebate as well as a detailed online energy audit tool.
In addition to the conservation program, the proposal also provides that Vectren's delivery service charges will be adjusted to permit recovery of substantially all of the margins that were determined to be appropriate by the IURC at the time it established the existing base rates. This aspect of the proposal will initially be limited to Vectren's North operations. As part of the settlement agreement with the OUCC the Vectren South operations will defer implementation of this aspect of the proposal until new base rates are established by the IURC as a result of a pending rate proceeding.
"This fundamental change to the ratemaking paradigm will allow us to aggressively support customer conservation efforts, thus helping customers lower the total cost of their natural gas bills without penalizing the company for achieving reductions in customer usage," Ellerbrook said. "As more energy companies across the country pursue the adoption of this type of innovative regulation the demand for natural gas throughout the United States should be reduced and as a result the price of the natural gas commodity should be lower than it otherwise would be.
"A national effort is underway and is likely the only near-term opportunity to help ease the pressures on energy supplies and prices," Ellerbrook added. "With energy providers now spearheading these types of initiatives as a national group, I'm optimistic we can better address and hopefully overcome this continuing crisis. We also received authorization for a similar conservation proposal relating to our Ohio operations in September of this year and we are now positioned to effectuate a culture change at Vectren that will focus our efforts on assisting our customers in using less energy."
These new conservation efforts also align with the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency, an effort Vectren announced it was participating in this July. The Environmental Protection Agency effort is a comprehensive plan delivered through electric and gas utilities that could reduce prices for natural gas, help defer the need for 40 new 500 megawatt-power plants, avoid the greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of more than 35 million vehicles, and lower the costs of air pollution controls.
For more information, check out the Vectren press release.
