By Mike Boyer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Residential gas bills will rise about 54 percent from a year ago starting Monday for Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co. customers.

The unit of Cinergy Corp. said the typical residential customer will pay $115.50 a month, up from $75.04 last September for a residential customer using the average 10,800 cubic feet of gas.

In Northern Kentucky, the same customer will pay $106.91 a month, up 45 percent from the $73.60 last September.

The culprit? Higher natural gas costs, which typically represent about 70 percent of the monthly bill.

Consumers such as Mike Rieck, a retiree who lives in North Avondale, find the increase tough to swallow.

"I think it's a hardship," he said. "I don't want to give them that money."

Rieck said he thinks that there's plenty of natural gas, but problems in the delivery system are driving up the cost. "I don't think deregulation has worked," he said.

Dayton-based Vectren Corp. said this week that its gas costs will rise 39 percent from a year ago starting Sept. 1.

By law, CG&E and other utilities pass through the cost of the gas they buy on a dollar-for-dollar basis through what's known as the gas cost recovery rate.

Starting Monday, the gas cost recovery rate will be $7.47 a thousand cubic feet in Ohio, compared with $4.19 a year ago. In Northern Kentucky the rate rises to $6.63 a thousand cubic feet from $3.93 a year ago.

The new gas cost recovery rate taking effect Monday is actually down about 7 percent from the rate in effect through the summer.

In the face of tighter supplies and higher demand, gas prices haven't declined this summer as much as in previous years.

In years past, CG&E made adjustments in its gas cost recovery rate quarterly. But last week, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved a change allowing CG&E to adjust its gas costs monthly starting in September.

Kentucky adjustments are still made quarterly, but CG&E said it plans to seek a similar change soon from the Kentucky Public Service Commission.

The company said the monthly changes more accurately reflect gas costs in customer bills. The quarterly changes included adjustments for under- or over-collections from prior periods, and that distorted monthly charges, the utility said.

The utility said the monthly changes should reduce the size of the price adjustments.

Ohio Consumers' Counsel Rob Tongren unsuccessfully tried to challenge the switch.

He argued that consumers wouldn't be able find alternative suppliers or cut consumption quickly enough when faced with monthly changes.

"Residential consumers are being denied essential pricing information," he said.

But Dublin, Ohio-based Interstate Gas Supply Inc., which is the only alternative supplier in CG&E's service area, says it has no problem with monthly changes.

"It more accurately reflects prices to consumers," spokesman Dave Burig said. Interstate has about 30,000 residential customers in CG&E's service area.

Steve Brash, CG&E spokesman, said the current rates were set four months ago, and natural gas consumption this summer was somewhat lower than expected.

He said it's difficult to predict what gas prices will be this winter, typically when consumption soars.

"A lot depends on the weather," he said.

Email mboyer@enquirer.com