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Staff Issues Recommended Decision in Utility’s Cost of Gas Proceeding
On October 14, 2026 Maine Staff filed a recommended decision in the annual review of cost of gas (COG) activities by Bangor Natural Gas.
Exceptions to recommended decision due by October 21, 2026.
Among other things the recommended decision does the followig:
(1) declines to adopt OPA’s disallowance and approve “the inclusion of demand charges for [Bangor’s] 3-year peaking contract in Bangor Gas’s 2026-2027 annual demand cost rate component”;
(2) approves for 11/26-10/27: (i) Bangor’s “proposed demand rate component of $0.544 per therm for use in its monthly cost of gas rate calculations”; and (ii) “a Fuel Reimbursement (FR) charge for [Bangor’s] transportation customers of 0.63%”;
(3) conditionally approves Bangor’s proposed: (i) modifications “of its Transportation Service Terms and Conditions to include Company Use and heater usage gas in its annual [FR] percentage, in addition to Lost And Unaccounted For (LAUF) gas”; and (ii) credit to “Sales Service customers for overcharges from May 2025 through October 31, 2026 that should have been charged to Transportation Service customers during that time period… made through the Past Gas Cost Adjustment rate”; and
(4) approves Bangor’s “proposal to report in its annual cost of gas proceeding on the same four metrics” approved for other Maine utilities, MAPE, “MAPE for the coldest 10% of days,” “Mean Percentage Error (MPE) across the heating season,” and “MPE for the coldest 10% of days,” declining to “approve the OPA’s proposed 5% benchmark” and directing Bangor “to report its performance against those metrics in each Annual Cost of Gas Rate Adjustment proceeding.”
