Black Hills Energy is again offering their Annual Price Option Program to residential customers.
Spokesperson Brandy Johnson says this is an opportunity for customers to lock in their per-therm price of natural gas supply for one year. She says, “If you are concerned about the fluctuations and you want to lock in the price you will be paying for the commodity portion of your bill, the Annual Price Option lets you do that.”
Customers can start signing up for the program on August 15th at www.blackhillsenergy.com/annual-price-option or by calling 800-753-7509. Enrollment ends Oct. 7, 2022, or when 12,000 customers have enrolled – whichever comes first. The locked-in commodity price will be in effect from Nov. 1, 2022, through Oct. 31, 2023. Since there is no automatic rollover year-to-year, customers must re-enroll if they’d like to remain in the APO program.
Black Hills states that the increase cost of natural gas is the primary driver of higher monthly utility costs for both electric and natural gas customers across the country. Natural gas prices have gone up over the past year and doubled and even tripled from the historically low prices in the past 8 to 10 years.
Customers’ bills will still fluctuate based on how much natural gas supply is used. This change is due primarily to cold weather. A customer’s gas consumption and billing level is also affected by the efficiency of natural gas appliances, how well a home is weatherized and other standard Company billing items. This program helps customers who are looking for more consistency and predictability in their budgets, especially during cold winter months.
Customers who don’t wish to participate in APO will continue to be billed using Black Hills Energy’s traditional natural gas supply portfolio rate. The price of traditional billing will fluctuate with market conditions.