Gas Company? (Atlanta: sales, apartment, leasing agent)

[artdeptheather]

Hi-

I'm moving to Atlanta at the end of the month and need to get my gas on. I've had no luck and gotten very confused googling. Can you tell me the name of the gas company? Thanks.

[BobKovacs]

There are a number of gas companies, depending on where you live. If you're renting an apartment, the leasing agent can tell you who serves the area. If it's a new house, the sales agent can tell you. If it's an existing house, ask the current owner.

[rackensack]

To elaborate a little more, Georgia de-regulated gas marketing several years ago, decoupling the delivery of gas from selling the gas to consumers. Atlanta Gas Light company still maintains the pipes that actually deliver gas to homes and businesses, but there are a variety of companies that sell gas -- to establish service, you contact one of these marketing companies. The nominal intent was to foster competition, offer consumers choices of differing pricing plans, etc. One consequence, however, has been the sort of confusion you're dealing with.

The Georgia Public Service commission provides a page on their web site with links, background and contact information for the gas marketers that are certified to operate in Georgia at: Georgia Public Service Commission .

Scana, GasKey, GasSouth, Georgia Natural Gas, and MX Energy are probably the best known among them. Nearly all offer either variable rate plans (where your rate moves up and down with the market) or fixed rate plans (where you lock in a rate for a specific period, usually 1 to 2 years). Fixed rate plans usually require a contract that may specify additional charges for early exit from the plan (i.e., to change to a different provider or to change back to variable pricing). To confuse matters more, most marketers charge additional fees of various kinds that make direct comparison of the rate per therm difficult (Customer Service Charge, Dedicated Design Day Capacity Charge, Franchise Recovery Fee, Pipeline Replacement Fee, etc.). The Georgia PSC also provides a set of pricing comparison charts that tries to provide an "apples-to-apples" comparison chart showing the effective price per therm for a typical customer, factoring in these additional charges for fixed and variable rate plans: Georgia Public Service Commission . Other factors to consider in selecting a provider are detailed at: Consumer Corner .

[artdeptheather]

Thanks rackensack, for the useful information.