Opinion ID: 2284798
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Residential Customers[9]

Text: The Commission explicitly adopted the recommendation of WGL that the monthly charge to residential heating and cooling customers be reduced from $8 to $5, to soften the adverse impact that a fixed charge each month has on small volume customers. Order 6051, at 95 (quoting WGL Exh. J, at 19-20 (testimony of Edmund W. Smallwood)). Whereas the WGL proposal sought a reduction only for customers who consumed below 100 Ccf per year, however, the Commission remarked that WGL concedes that there is no real difference in the customer costs based on annual consumption [between customers who consume above and below 100 Ccf per year], Order 6051, at 96, and therefore applied the $5 charge uniformly to all residential heating and cooling customers.
Residential non-heating and non-cooling customers use gas solely for cooking and/or heating water. The Commission remarked upon the low revenues WGL receives from this class, but also noted that under the two-part rate this class of customers pays the highest unit price for service of any class. Id. WGL, the Commission found, had in the past promoted gas usage among these low-volume gas users who are in no position to respond to more cost-based rates. Id. at 97. The Commission, in the face of this conflict between cost causation and historic rate patterns and social considerations, id., reduced the customer charge for the residential non-heating, non-cooling customer class by approximately the same proportion as it reduced the residential heating and cooling class, from $3.75 per month to $2.50 per month.