Ohio commercial gas: choice, transport and SCO

Four large systems, and a long tail of small ones

PUCO's own gas customers' bill of rights is the quickest way to see who actually distributes gas in Ohio, because it lists the companies rather than describing the market. Four investor-owned systems dominate it: Columbia Gas of Ohio, Enbridge Gas Ohio — published with the former name Dominion Energy Ohio attached — Duke Energy Ohio, and CenterPoint Energy Ohio, published with the former name Vectren Energy Delivery of Ohio attached. Those four are also the choices on PUCO's Apples to Apples natural gas comparison, which is organised utility by utility, so the chooser itself tells you which one serves your address before you read a single offer. Below them sits a long tail of small companies: Northeast Ohio Natural Gas, Ohio Cumberland Gas, Ohio Valley Gas, Waterville Gas and Oil, Glenwood Energy of Oxford, Ohio Gas Company, Suburban Natural Gas, Piedmont Gas, Pike Natural Gas, Arlington Natural Gas, Brainard Gas, Eastern Natural Gas, Foraker Gas, Kalida Gas and KNG Energy, Orwell Natural Gas, Sheldon Gas, Southeastern Natural Gas and Swickard Gas. Those companies are regulated distribution utilities but they are not the four-utility comparison, and several of them have no competitive supplier programme at all. PUCO's own service-area map of the state's gas distribution providers is the authority on a particular street, and the Apples to Apples chooser is the fastest way to see whether a given address sits with one of the four big systems.

• Columbia Gas of Ohio, Enbridge Gas Ohio, Duke Energy Ohio and CenterPoint Energy Ohio are the four systems PUCO compares offers for.
• Enbridge Gas Ohio is published as the former Dominion Energy Ohio; CenterPoint Energy Ohio as the former Vectren Energy Delivery of Ohio.
• PUCO also lists roughly eighteen smaller gas companies, from Northeast Ohio Natural Gas to Swickard Gas.
• The small companies are not on the Apples to Apples comparison and some have no supplier programme.
• The meter, and PUCO's provider map, settle which system serves an address — a county outline does not.
• Columbia Gas of Ohio organises its own service information by region, spanning Columbus and Springfield, Toledo and north-western Ohio, north-eastern and north-central Ohio, and eastern and southern Ohio.

The threshold that decides how you buy: 500,000 cubic feet

Ohio's statute, not the utility's marketing, sets the fork in the road. Under Ohio Revised Code 4929.01, a mercantile customer is one that consumes more than five hundred thousand cubic feet of natural gas a year, other than for residential use, at a single location in Ohio — or one that consumes gas as part of an undertaking with more than three locations, whether those locations are inside Ohio or outside it. That second clause catches chains and multi-plant operators whose individual sites are small. North of the line, the customer buys transportation; south of it, the customer is a choice customer buying a supply product on the utility's programme. The arithmetic is worth doing on your own meter rather than estimating: add twelve months of metered volume, remembering that a bill may present hundreds of cubic feet (Ccf) while a contract quotes thousands (Mcf), so the unit on the page is doing as much work as the number. A site that heats with gas and runs a process load will usually clear the line on heating alone; a site that takes gas only for hot water may not, which is exactly why a portfolio holding company needs the same check at every address.

• More than 500,000 cubic feet a year at one non-residential location makes a customer mercantile under the statute.
• So does consuming gas as part of an undertaking with more than three locations, inside or outside Ohio.
• Mercantile accounts buy transportation capacity or transportation-related service; smaller accounts buy a supply product.
• Convert carefully: a bill may read in Ccf and a contract in Mcf, and the units differ by a factor of ten.
• A single-site restaurant and a twenty-site chain can sit on different sides of the line at the same address type.

What default supply is called: SCO, SSO and monthly retail rates

There is no single Ohio default. Each distributor runs its own arrangement, and the names differ. At Columbia Gas of Ohio the default is the Standard Choice Offer, and the company explains the arithmetic on its own page: the SCO rate equals a market price plus a retail price adjustment, where the market price is the month-end natural gas settlement on the New York Mercantile Exchange and the adjustment is set by an annual auction that PUCO conducts. Every SCO supplier charges the same SCO price, and the customer's bill simply names whichever supplier won a share of that auction — Columbia itself still delivers the gas and still sends the bill. Columbia also notes the unit mismatch that catches readers out: the market price it works from is expressed per Mcf, while the company bills in Ccf and expresses the SCO price in Ccf. The auction term runs from April through March, which is why a renewal conversation that starts in spring is a different conversation from one that starts in autumn. Enbridge Gas Ohio runs an annual auction for both a standard service offer and a standard choice offer, and separately offers a monthly retail rate programme, so a buyer comparing the two utilities is comparing two different default-supply designs rather than one product under two names.

• Columbia's default is the Standard Choice Offer, priced as a market price plus a retail price adjustment.
• The adjustment comes from an annual PUCO-run auction; every SCO supplier charges the same SCO price.
• Columbia's SCO term runs April through March, and the supplier's name appears on the customer's bill.
• The SCO market price is quoted per Mcf while Columbia bills in Ccf and quotes the SCO price in Ccf.
• Enbridge Gas Ohio auctions both a standard service offer and a standard choice offer, and offers a monthly retail rate programme.

Transportation service in practice: thresholds, standby and pooling

For a mercantile account, the product is transportation, and Columbia Gas of Ohio publishes the shape of it. The company's Transportation Service programme is available to commercial and industrial customers consuming more than 6,000 Mcf a year; a customer below that level is still eligible, but pays for Standby Service to keep the utility's supply available behind the transportation arrangement. Under the programme the customer buys gas from a certified supplier while Columbia continues to deliver it, read the meter, perform safety checks and respond to emergencies — and the delivery bill still arrives from Columbia, carrying meter charges, banking and balancing fees and applicable tax, while the supplier bills the supply separately. Enbridge Gas Ohio publishes a wider service menu on its transportation pages: pooling services for suppliers, firm storage and in-and-out storage, and for end-use customers a daily transportation service and a general transportation service, alongside an annual standard service offer and standard choice offer auction and a monthly retail rate programme. The practical consequence for a buyer is that 'transportation' is a family of arrangements, and the one that fits depends on whether the site can nominate a steady daily quantity or swings with the weather.

• Columbia's Transportation Service is published for accounts consuming more than 6,000 Mcf a year.
• Below that volume a customer may still transport but pays for Standby Service.
• The distributor keeps delivering, metering, safety checks and emergency response; the supplier sells only supply.
• The delivery bill keeps meter charges, banking and balancing fees and tax; supply is billed separately.
• Enbridge Gas Ohio offers daily and general transportation service to end-use customers, plus pooling, firm storage and in-and-out storage.
• Match the service to the load: a steady plant and a weather-driven site need different nomination arrangements.

Certification: what sits behind a supplier's name

Ohio Revised Code 4929.20 makes certification by the Public Utilities Commission a precondition of serving a customer: no retail natural gas supplier or governmental aggregator may provide competitive retail natural gas service without demonstrating the managerial, technical and financial capability to provide it, and providing financial assurances sufficient to protect customers and gas companies from default. Two features of the section are useful to a buyer in a hurry. Certification or renewal is deemed approved thirty days after the application is filed unless the Commission suspends that approval for good cause, and if it does suspend, the Commission must act to approve or deny within ninety days. The section also lets a gas company set reasonable security standards for itself and its customers through its own tariff, which is why a distributor can ask a supplier for more reassurance than the statute alone requires. The supporting rules sit in Ohio Administrative Code Chapter 4901:1-27, which covers applications, financial security, renewal, material changes and the Commission's power to suspend or revoke. In practice: PUCO publishes the certified supplier list, and the Apples to Apples charts show only the suppliers actively enrolling new customers — a company that is certified but absent from the chart is not necessarily a company you can sign with today.

• PUCO certification is a precondition of enrolling an Ohio customer, not an optional credential.
• The standard is managerial, technical and financial capability plus financial assurances against default.
• Certification is deemed approved 30 days after filing unless the Commission suspends it for good cause.
• Ohio Administrative Code Chapter 4901:1-27 carries the application, security, renewal and revocation rules.
• The Apples to Apples chart lists certified suppliers actively enrolling new customers, which is a narrower list than certification alone.

Winter: storage, firm capacity and the peak-day question

Ohio's winter risk is a deliverability risk rather than an annual-supply one, and the federal winter assessment states the frame plainly: national gas demand is forecast to exceed production through the winter, with the difference drawn from storage, and storage inventories in the East began the season slightly below the prior year and slightly below the five-year average. Ohio sits between Appalachian production and mid-western and mid-Atlantic demand, which is a good position on an average day and a less comfortable one on the coldest morning of the year, when every heating load, generator and industrial process is asking for the same molecules at the same hour. That is why the commercial questions worth asking are operational rather than commercial: whether the arrangement is firm or interruptible, whether storage is attached to it, whether the supplier can nominate daily quantities that track the site's load, and what happens if the site takes more than its nomination allows. An authorised overrun is gas taken above a contracted limit with permission and is normally priced as interruptible service; an imbalance is the mismatch between what was nominated and what was actually taken, and it is what generates charges after a cold snap. Firm transportation with storage attached is the arrangement that survives a peak day; a bundled supply product with no capacity behind it is the one that does not.

• Winter is a peak-day deliverability question, not an annual volume question.
• FERC's winter assessment has national demand exceeding production, met from storage, with eastern inventories slightly below last year and the five-year average.
• Ohio sits between Appalachian supply and mid-western and mid-Atlantic demand, so cold-morning competition for capacity is real.
• Ask whether the supply is firm or interruptible, and whether storage is attached to it.
• An authorised overrun is gas above a contracted limit taken with permission; an imbalance is a mismatch between nomination and actual take.
• Both overruns and imbalances generate charges after a cold snap, so the balancing terms belong in the review before signing.

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