Winter heating is a significant cost for many homes and businesses. In fact, the $600+ per month cost last winter jumped into the #1 largest cost item of running my small shop last year. So naturally I was curious about heating cost for this coming winter.
If you heat your home with heating oil then this will be a good winter for you: total expense is predicted to be 15% lower than last year. Both the price and predicted use are lower. If you use natural gas (as most do in PECO’s suburban Philadelphia zone) it’s not so rosy. The price if gas is higher (see the chart below) but total usage is predicted to be less than last winter so the overall heating bill will still be about 2-3% lower. The same is predicted for electric heat in the northeast. Propane price will be about 5% lower after a sharp rise in price last winter. Combined with a predicted drop in use, propane heating costs will be 14% lower.
See http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/tables/pdf/wf-table.pdf for more information.
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