Colorado consumers can expect the summer pinch from high fuel prices to morph into a winter nip from home energy bills, state energy officials said Wednesday.
Local heating bills are anticipated to increase about 20 percent to 30 percent, and that’s causing a wave of conservation to become the best battle plan.
“We don’t see any scenario of prices going down and staying down,” Susan Arigoni, Xcel Energy’s vice president of fuels, told the Colorado Public Utilities Commission at a meeting Wednesday.
Other gas-company executives said the same.
But Colorado isn’t expected to get it as bad as the rest of the country, according to the U.S. Energy Department, which Wednesday issued its own dire predictions.
Natural-gas users on average will spend $1,216 to heat their homes in the upcoming season, which runs from November to April. That’s up 43 percent from last season, the government said.
Locally, the average natural-gas bill will heat up to $780, according to Energy Outreach Colorado, which helps low-income families meet energy costs. With electricity, the average Colorado household will pay $1,223 this season, EOC estimates.
Worst-hit, though, will be low-income families. Even with aid, their portion of the bill is expected to be 44 percent more this year than last, EOC director Skip Arnold told the PUC.
It’s all prompted consumer advocates and other agencies to begin outreach programs in the dog days of summer rather than the cool breezes of fall.
“We’re really worried,” said Jennifer Gremmert, deputy director of EOC. “It’s not just rent and mortgages anymore.”
The consensus is nothing new: insulate, conserve and winterize. Unfortunately, many consumers don’t think of doing these things until the first snowflake falls.
“People just don’t know enough to get going early,” said Steve Byers of the Energy Efficiency Business Coalition.
There are other options for dealing with the costs, including bill averaging, where energy companies charge an average amount each month in order to avoid the sting of a large bill during a cold snap.
EOC estimates 370,000 Colorado families could qualify for home energy-bill assistance.
David Migoya: 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com
