PANNSYLVANIA (WHTM) — UGI customers might have noticed a new line on their gas bills recently, called a Weather Normalization Adjustment (WNA).

The WNA took effect in November 2022, after the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) approved it as a five-year pilot program. The adjustment applies from October to May.

UGI said this will help make people’s gas bills more predictable during extreme weather.

“Everybody’s WNA will be slightly different,” UGI Manager of Media Relations Joseph Swope said.

The WNA is a new program for UGI, but not technically a new program in the utility world.

“We’re actually the third gas utility in Pennsylvania that’s implemented a WNA,” Swope said.

Here is what the WNA means for customers:

• If temperatures are more than 3 percent colder than normal, customers will see a credit on their gas bill.
• If temperatures are more than 3 percent warmer than normal, customers get charged a little extra.

The credit or charge fluctuates based on individual usage as well as how much warmer or colder average temperatures are.

“Winter weather can fluctuate significantly so the idea is that it will stabilize the bill through those months,” Swope said.

UGI calculates what is “normal” using an average of the last 15 years based on where customers live.

“The average temperature in Lancaster or Harrisburg, for instance, is going to be different than the average temperature in Scranton or Wilkes-Barre,” Swope said.

abc27 also asked about accounting for climate change and the expectation temperatures will continue to rise. Swope said that is built into the calculations.

“It’s based on a 15-year average, which will update every five years,” he said. “So it’s taking into account current weather patterns.”

The program will stabilize revenue for UGI, which the company said will help them better plan maintenance and provide reliable service. Swope said it will stabilize customer’s bills too, rather than skyrocketing bills in the colder months.

“So you don’t get sticker shock when you have a gas bill that’s literally twice as much as you thought it was going to be,” he said.

Most importantly, Swope said this is not a rate increase since it uses both credits and charges. He said the WNA is designed to be “revenue-neutral.”

“It’s designed to balance over time and level off,” he said.

Over the next five years, UGI and the PUC will look at the program, and based on how it went, the agencies will decide whether to keep it as is, tweak it, or get rid of it.