Natural Gas Charges

Consumers Energy’s typical residential customer uses about 93 thousand cubic feet (Mcf) of natural gas each year. About 80 percent of that gas is used for heating. Individual bills will vary depending on the weather and energy use habits.

How natural gas gets to your home 
Natural gas operations statistics 

Typically there are three charges for natural gas on a Consumers Energy residential customer bill.

• Gas Cost Recovery covers the cost of the natural gas per Mcf.  This charge (see table below) may change each month to reflect market conditions. Under state law, Consumers Energy can't make any profit on the natural gas, so it charges customers only what it pays for the gas.  The utility buys most of the gas customers will need in the upcoming winter during the summer when prices are generally lower and stores it in underground storage fields.
• Distribution Charge includes recovery of operations and maintenance expenses (i.e. maintaining pipelines, new pipelines, storage well reliability, etc.). The monthly charge, which varies by rate class, is about $2.50 per Mcf for most residential customers.
• Customer Charge includes recovery of customer-related activities (i.e. meter costs, customer accounting, customer billing, etc.).  The fixed charge is $10.50 per month.

The following is an 18-month review of the Gas Cost Recovery charges, including our current month price per Mcf.