Colder weather means city utilities rise

Utility prices are rising as colder weather drives demand.

Medicine Hat utility customers will pay $2.93 per gigajoule of natural gas used in February, up by 31 cents, while power also moves up to 8.7 cents per kilowatt hour.

For electricity, that marks an increase of one-eighth of one cent over January.

Medicine Hat sets its monthly commodity rates as the average of default prices from major utility providers across the province.

For February, the high price for power was set by Epcor in the Edmonton area at 8.96 cents, and the low price was Direct Energy at 8.36 cents.

Comparable gas prices were $2.77 from Direct Energy and $3.09 from Apex, previously known as AltaGas.