Piedmont Natural Gas submits rate review request to North Carolina regulators

Piedmont Natural Gas filed a request this week with the North Carolina Utilities Commission to raise its base rates, effective in November 2024.

The rate adjustment is necessary to recover costs incurred to comply with federal safety regulations, enhance the customer experience, and build needed infrastructure to meet the energy demands of more than 810,000 customers in North Carolina.

“Many of these investments were required for us to safely operate in our communities, but we know price increases for any reason can be challenging for some customers,” Brian Weisker, senior vice president and president of Piedmont Natural Gas, said. “Piedmont is here to help those customers by offering a variety of ways to manage their bills, including assistance programs, our Equal Payment Plan, and energy-saving tips and tools.”

In addition, Piedmont is requesting concurrent rate reductions for pass-through natural gas costs and to accelerate the flow back to customers of the remaining eligible balance of excess deferred income taxes. These actions would mitigate the overall impact on customers’ bills.

Overall, the request represents an 11.7 percent increase in the company’s revenues over the first year that new rates are effective. An additional overall increase of about 0.8 percent would occur after the first year once the reduction for excess deferred income taxes expires.

“At Piedmont, we work hard every day to avoid increases to customer bills and to keep costs as low as possible,” Weisker said. “The investments we’ve made to strengthen and enhance our natural gas delivery system help ensure we can meet rising demand for natural gas from new and existing customers while also protecting our customers from unplanned outages.”

Piedmont requests periodic rate adjustments to reflect fluctuations in the market price of natural gas. However, Piedmont does not mark up the cost of natural gas and must pass through the actual cost on a dollar-for-dollar basis to customers. Currently, market prices for wholesale natural gas are at the lowest point in more than a decade. If this trend continues, Piedmont may be able to seek further rate reductions for pass-through natural gas costs in the coming months.

Piedmont serves six of North Carolina’s 10 most populated cities. Its last rate review case in North Carolina occurred in 2021.