Both commercial and residential rates are set higher in the summer to reflect the fact that it costs much more to supply an additional unit of water in the summer than in the winter. The higher summer rate provides an important price signal to customers that water is worth more in the summer. The summer rate is not a penalty rate and customers are not being penalized for using water in the summer. Residential customers do not subsidize the commercial class. It costs more per unit of water to provide water service to residential customers than to commercial customers.
Residential consumption is peakier than commercial consumption.
While commercial customers as a class use about the same amount of water throughout the year, the residential class uses much more water in the summer than in the winter. Peak week and peak day demand for the residential class are two to three times as high as average annual demand. Transmission pipelines and pumping stations must be sized to meet peak week demand. Since the residential class contributes more to peak day and peak week demand than the commercial class, more of the costs of meeting peak demands are allocated to the residential class. This is a fixed monthly fee, determined by the size of the water meter installed at your property.