American Gas - August/September 2013 - (Page 21)
taking this money and putting it to good use.”
Pennsylvania’s total budget for 2013-2014
was $28.4 billion. —Peter Haapaniemi
main street
Purchase Power
Customers of gas supplier earn rewards
for retail purchases
LaNCaster, pa—An alternative electric and
natural gas supplier in Pennsylvania has begun
offering its customers a rewards program through
which they can earn credits towards their monthly utility bills by shopping at one of thousands of
designated retailers.
Amerigreen, which is one of several alternative suppliers for customers of Columbia Gas,
UGI, and PECO in Pennsylvania, has partnered
with BillAway, a Massachusetts-based start-up, to
create Amerigreen Energy Rewards.
Through the program, customers can earn
credit of as much as 10 percent on select purchases at retailers such as Macy’s, Walgreens, and
Kmart. To earn the credits on online purchases,
customers have to make them through the
Amerigreen/BillAway portal. To earn credits for
in-store shopping, customers go online to link
their store loyalty cards to their Amerigreen account, then select the qualifying purchases they
plan to make. Customers can apply their earned
credits when they pay their energy bill online
through the portal.
Several fuel oil, propane, and sanitation
companies offer BillAway’s rewards program
to their customers, but Amerigreen is the only
natural gas or electric supplier that does so, Jon
Loercher, Amerigreen’s director of electricity and
gas, told American Gas.
Loercher said the company only has “a couple
thousand” customers in Pennsylvania, but is
planning a big marketing push there, prominently featuring the rewards program. Amerigreen is
also planning to expand into deregulated markets
in New Jersey and New York, he said.
“We think the rewards program will be a way
to help us stand out among all the other alternative suppliers consumers have to choose from,”
Loercher says. —J.P.T.
elm street
Give Them Credit
Storage facility benefits utility’s
consumers
pOrtLaND, Or—For the 12th straight year,
Northwest Natural Gas has issued millions of
dollars in credits to its customers as a result of
the company’s effective management of its pipeline and storage capacity.
The Portland-based utility’s annual Interstate
Storage credit this year totaled $8.5 million,
largely funded by the operation of its underground storage facility in Mist, Ore., for which it
recently disclosed expansion plans.
Residential customers saw an average $9.18
credit on their June bills; for commercial customers, it was $44. Cumulatively, Northwest has
issued $80.6 million in Interstate Storage credits
over the past 12 years.
Randy Friedman, Northwest’s director of gas
supply, told American Gas that large quantities
of natural gas were first discovered in Mist, 60
miles northwest of Portland, in 1979. Ten years
later, Northwest began using depleted sandstone
reservoirs there for natural gas storage.
In the late 1990s, the utility worked out an
agreement with state regulators that allowed it to
market the storage capacity it didn’t need to other
utilities, manufacturers, and other large natural
gas consumers. Rather than rolling the revenue
from those contracts into a lower base rate, customers see the returns through an annual credit.
Friedman said he doesn’t know of any other
utility that has such an arrangement. It has
allowed Northwest to develop storage capacity
ahead of its customers’ needs and to spread out
development costs over time, he said.
Northwest recently disclosed plans to nearly
double the size of the 2,828-acre storage facility.
In filings with the state, the utility said it
had identified five additional potential storage
reservoirs within the Mist Field and would seek
to expand its peak daily delivery capacity to
685 million standard cubic feet. The expansion
would serve Portland General Electric’s electric
generation facilities near Clatskanie, Ore., but
other large manufacturers and industrial customers are expected to sign on as well. —J.P.T.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Gas - August/September 2013
American Gas - August/September 2013
Contents
President’s Message
Subject Index
Dual-Fuel CNG Beauties
Digest
Issues
Issues
Issues
Need to Know
By the Numbers
Places
In Las Vegas, Another Man-Made Wonder
State House
State House
Elm Street
Main Street
A Matter of Trust
Profile
Here Comes the Grid
Marketing
Jobs
Vendor News
Marketplace
Headway
American Gas - August/September 2013
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