Bridging the Gap: A New Approach to Energy Assistance
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This post is sponsored by NACo corporate partner, American Gas Association
It is no secret costs seem to be creeping up. From the grocery store to your cell phone plan, daily costs are stretching budgets thin. And while natural gas remains the most affordable way to heat homes and businesses by a factor of three, utility companies are not immune from these price increases as inflation, labor costs, and permitting delays add unavoidable costs. America’s natural gas utilities are committed to meeting customers where they are and providing a suite of programs to ensure reliable service even on the coldest days of the year.
Natural gas utilities offer and participate in a multitude of energy assistance programs to help customers in need. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) provides energy cost and weatherization assistance to low-income households with federal funding administered at the state and local level. Additionally, utilities may offer budget billing, weatherization assistance, low or no cost efficiency upgrades, payment plans, or prohibit service disconnections during the winter heating season.
Counties are an integral part of ensuring households are aware of the resources available to them. No one should have to choose between staying warm or refilling their next prescription. In Allegheny County Peoples Natural Gas is partnering with local startup Peoples Energy Analytics (PEA) to better identify customers in need. PEA uses a proprietary algorithm to analyze factors like historic gas usage, billing data, and temperature levels to identify the customers who are most vulnerable to experiencing negative outcomes such as frozen pipes or falling behind on energy bills. PEA then works with Peoples to customize and target outreach for those vulnerable customers, both individually and to areas of Allegheny County with a higher clustering of at-risk customers. By enrolling more customers into assistance programs, Peoples and PEA are improving affordability through lower monthly bills for these individuals.
The pilot program, which spanned the 2024-25 winter heating season, proved to be an immense success with the number of customers signed up for assistance programs more than doubling for the target area within Allegheny County. Across all its partnerships with utility companies, PEA’s methods reduced the cost of proactively identifying and enrolling high-needs customers by 94 percent. This winter, Peoples and PEA have expanded their scope to analyze all 18 Pennsylvania counties where the utility operates.
While natural gas expenditures make up just 1.1% of all annual household expenses for the average American household, the American Gas Association remains committed to identifying solutions to making energy even more affordable, with utilities investing as much as $1.4 billion into energy-efficiency programs in 2023. Click here to learn how AGA members work every day to support household affordability.
Author: Frank Canavan, Director, State Affairs | American Gas Association
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