How to understand GA gas rates: per-therm pricing, monthly service charges, and what actually drives your bill.
Georgia natural gas rates look simple — a number of cents per therm — and that simplicity is exactly what trips people up. Two plans advertised at nearly the same rate can produce bills that differ by $50 or more over a winter. Understanding why takes about five minutes and is the highest-return thing you can do before you compare Georgia natural gas rates.
A therm is a unit of heat energy, roughly what you get from burning 100 cubic feet of natural gas. Your meter measures volume in CCF; the utility converts it to therms using a heat-content factor. All you need to take from that is this: therms are the unit your rate is quoted in, and the unit your usage is billed in. A typical Georgia household uses somewhere between 25 therms a month in summer and well over 100 in a cold January.
Every Georgia gas bill is built from three components, and only two of them are chosen by you.
This is the per-therm price your marketer charges for the gas itself, and the number every advertisement leads with. It is the only part of the bill that competition acts on. Multiply it by your monthly therms to get your supply cost.
Also called the customer service charge or MRC, this is a flat monthly fee the marketer bills whether you use any gas or not. It commonly runs from about $5 to $10 a month, and some marketers quote it as a range rather than a single figure. This is the number most shoppers ignore, and it is why the lowest advertised rate is frequently not the cheapest bill.
The Atlanta Gas Light delivery portion pays for the pipes, the meter and emergency response. It is set by the Georgia Public Service Commission, is based on your home’s design day capacity, and is exactly the same no matter which marketer you pick. No marketer can discount it, and any that implies otherwise is misleading you. See understand your natural gas bill for where each charge appears.
Compare total monthly cost at your own usage, not headline rates:
(supply rate × your monthly therms) + monthly service charge
Consider two real-shaped offers. Plan A is 49.9¢ per therm with a $9.95 service charge. Plan B is 59.9¢ with no service charge. At 25 therms in a mild month, Plan A costs $22.43 and Plan B costs $14.98 — Plan B wins comfortably. At 100 therms in January, Plan A costs $59.85 and Plan B costs $59.90 — effectively a tie. The “cheaper” plan changes with your usage, which is why a blanket recommendation is worthless. The natural gas calculator does this for you.
Marketers buy gas on the wholesale market, so retail offers follow national supply and demand, storage levels and weather forecasts. Rates generally firm up heading into winter and soften in shoulder seasons. You cannot time the market precisely, but you can avoid the worst outcome: drifting onto a high variable rate in December because a fixed term lapsed in September.
A quoted rate means something different depending on the plan type. A fixed rate plan holds that price for the whole term. A variable rate plan can change monthly with no cap, so today’s number is a snapshot rather than a commitment. Introductory variable rates are often the lowest on the board precisely because they are temporary.
Find the supply rate and service charge on your current bill, run the arithmetic above, then compare against the live market. Start with current Georgia natural gas rates, or go straight to a marketer such as Georgia Natural Gas, Gas South or SCANA Energy. If a better plan exists, switching Georgia gas suppliers is free and does not interrupt service.