Hearings begin for Peoples’ rate increase plan

Utility company asks PUC for $156M boost to repair and maintain its pipeline system

Peoples Natural Gas Co.’s proposed rate increase got its first public hearing on Tuesday, organized by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, which will decide later this year if customer rates will rise between 7.6% and 21.4% this fall.

The PUC is weighing Peoples’ request for more revenue, which the utility says is necessary to repair and maintain its aging system of pipelines throughout Western Pennsylvania.

North Shore-based Peoples, which is a subsidiary of Essential Utilities, serves 700,000 customers in this region and has requested a $156 million increase in its annual revenue to keep pace with inflation and to attract investors with an 11.5% return baked into the proposal.

Nick Hoffman, a Peoples customer from Indiana, Pa., testified that might be an excessive burden for Pennsylvanians.

“A price increase this large — it’s very difficult for a residential customer to budget,” he said during an afternoon public hearing at the Community College of Allegheny County Boyce Campus in Monroeville.

Mr. Hoffman was particularly concerned about Peoples’ proposal to add a weather normalization mechanism to its bills, which would return money to customers if winter months are colder than historical averages and charge customers more when temperatures are higher than what they have been in prior decades.

The utility company has said the charge would even out bills by ensuring unusual weather doesn’t cause swings in monthly statements.

But, falling as the hearing did on an early March day where the temperature reached the mid-70s, Mr. Hoffman worried that the trend toward warmer weather in the winter months would work against customers.

“It does not seem moral or reasonable for Peoples to want to collect additional fees when the temperature is warmer, and customers therefore have less need of natural gas,” he said. “The weather is a