Small NW Natural Bill Increase Starts October 31

Posted on October 29, 2025 by Charlotte Shuff
Tags, Energy

Starting October 31, NW Natural customers will see a small increase in their gas bills. Regulators approved two rate increases that will raise home gas bills by 5.5% on average, about $4.28 per month. This increase will be higher in the winter months as heaters use more gas.

Earlier this year, NW Natural asked for a 7% increase in billing rates for its household gas customers. The gas utility filed this request with regulators just two months after receiving a rate increase on November 1, 2024. CUB helped reach agreements with the gas utility to lower this increase by about two-thirds, cutting nearly $38 million.

Why Are NW Natural Billing Rates Increasing?

Regulators approved NW Natural to collect more money, primarily for replacing aging equipment, seismic upgrades, and rising costs from inflation.

Major cost drivers include:

Inflation: Rising costs for equipment, staffing, etc.
Infrastructure: Replacing equipment at the Mist gas storage facility and the North Coast Feeder pipeline.
System Upgrades: Seismic upgrades for resource centers and modernizing IT systems

This increase also included changes in the cost of methane, the fuel used by gas companies. Gas costs are almost entirely passed on to customers by utilities based on the cost of fuel. The cost of methane has increased from last year, accounting for about half of the total billing rate increase this year.

CUB Helped Cut $38 Million from NW Natural Bill Increases

NW Natural initially asked for $59.3 million from customers. CUB, Green Energy Institute, regulators, and other parties in the case were able to negotiate that amount down to a $21.3 million increase.

What CUB Helped Cut:

Profit margin increases
Membership dues (e.g., American Gas Association)
Overprojected wages/salaries

Of all of these cuts, profits were the largest reduction in the rate increase. Originally, NW Natural asked to increase its allowable profit margin from 9.4% to 10.4%. CUB and other advocates negotiated an increase to just 9.5%, in line with other gas utilities in Oregon. This cut alone saved customers nearly $15 million a year.

CUB also helped cut millions of dollars in profits that NW Natural wanted to make from the Mist compressor replacement project. In our investigation, we found that NW Natural was trying to continue profiting from equipment from the Mist Underground Natural Gas Storage Facility in Columbia County that was no longer being used.

NW Natural originally projected that this project would have a 50-year lifespan, but retired it after just 25 years. While it’s normal for customers to continue paying off the cost of the equipment if it’s retired early, it’s against state policy for a utility to earn a profit from something that is not actually in use. Replacements for safety and to save money are in the customers’ best interest, but added profits for unused equipment are not.

Regulators Shy Away From Addressing Electrification

As Oregon’s gas utilities have to grapple with reducing emissions 90% by 2050, electrification has been on many people’s minds. Replacing gas furnaces, stoves, and water heaters with all-electric appliances is an easy way to reduce how much gas we’re using in our buildings. While issues of electrification were raised in this case by CUB and Green Energy Institute, regulators at the Oregon Public Utility Commission shied away from making any changes in policy.

Customer Will Still Pay for Retired Equipment After Electrification

When a home or business goes all electric, it leaves behind pipes, meters, and other equipment tying it to the gas system. This infrastructure gets slowly paid off by everyone for decades, often over 50 years, with added costs for utility profit.

This year, CUB proposed that just the profit from any equipment left behind by electrification be taken off of customers’ bills if it is no longer in use. We found it reasonable to pay for the remaining infrastructure costs, but the utility shouldn’t make money off of equipment that is no longer used.

Unfortunately, regulators ruled against CUB’s proposal to cut out profits from unused gas infrastructure after a customer goes all-electric. Regulators said that there is not enough data showing that customers are leaving the gas system. The problem is that NW Natural also refuses to collect data about electrification.

We know that there are many Oregonians who have gone all-electric. Without utility-collected data, we may never be able to proactively address the issue of cost. When a customer chooses to leave the gas system, they are no longer the ones paying for the pipes and other things that connected them to the gas system. Instead, the utility passes those stranded costs on to customers who remain on the system. We could be left with low-income customers, renters, and anyone who cannot voluntarily leave gas with increasingly high bills for equipment that does not benefit anyone.

Funds for Low-Income Customers Cannot Be Used for Heat Pumps

A main issue raised by Green Energy Institute was how low-income assistance funds can be used when an old furnace breaks. Currently, funds are available through OLIEE (Oregon Low Income Energy Efficiency Program) for qualified households to replace broken or inefficient furnaces. These funds are vital to help reduce gas bills and provide heat for those with the fewest resources.

For a program with “energy efficiency” in the name, it would make sense for customers to be able to access the most energy-efficient form of home heating — heat pumps. But because these heaters do not use gas, OLIEE funds cannot be used for replacing an old gas furnace with a heat pump.

This year, Green Energy Institute asked regulators to allow these OLIEE funds to be used for heat pumps. Regulators declined and recommended that this issue be brought back in a different case. This is not the first, or even second, time that the Commission has punted this issue.

CUB Supporters Helped Make These Wins Possible

While we are disappointed in the outcomes on electrification, cutting NW Natural’s request by roughly two-thirds is still a big win for customers. Thank you to all of the community members and organizations who spoke out against NW Natural’s request! Your support helped move the needle on avoiding another large rate increase in 2025.

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