DES MOINES, Iowa - MidAmerican energy customers will see higher bills starting next month, due to the extreme cold snap.
MidAmerican Energy says residential customers will see an average increase of $13 in the March bill, and an average $18 monthly increase for the rest of the year.
The company says the bigger bills will be less than what most for the central U.S. will experience.
It says its residential customers used 50 percent more natural gas than normal for that two-week cold snap.
MidAmerican commercial customers will see an average increase of $95 in their March bills, and $98 in subsequent months.
The company says its spreading the impact of the sharp increase in natural gas usage over numerous months.
The company has authorization from the Iowa Utilities Board to suspend a rule requiring the company to collect all February heating costs during a limited billing window that currently ends in August.
In addition to spreading out the payments, MidAmerican says it's already saving customers $400 million dollars through its use of underground gas storage and advance purchase of natural gas that locked in prices prior to this month’s unusually long stretch of very cold weather.
Photo by KCRG-TV 9