Ohio’s Office of the Consumers’ Counsel, the state’s statutory advocate for residential utility customers, says Duke Energy Ohio’s request for higher natural gas rates would cost a typical household more than $24 a month. The same filing would raise the fee to restore service after a shutoff to $164. Nothing has been approved. The proposal is pending at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, known as PUCO.
What the Duke gas filing would change
The consumer alert posted by the Office of the Consumers’ Counsel, or OCC, says a typical residential consumer using 10 Mcf of natural gas per month would pay more than $24 per month extra, which the office puts at over $288 more per year. An Mcf is one thousand cubic feet of gas, the unit that appears on many gas bills. The $24 figure is the office’s calculation for that 10 Mcf level of use, so a household that burns less gas in a month would see a smaller bump and a household that burns more would see a larger one.
The same page says Duke “also proposes increasing its reconnection fee to $164,” which it describes as $94 more than the current fee. The office does not print the current fee, so the old charge is not stated anywhere on the alert. OCC does not state the total revenue Duke is asking for either.
Duke Energy Ohio’s rate case is filed under PUCO Case No. 26-0635-GA-AIR. OCC has stepped into the case on behalf of Duke’s nearly 430,000 residential natural gas customers. The alert carries no named spokesperson, so the claims here belong to the office as an institution. The page itself does not print a date.
Who this reaches and what has to happen next
The households in the case are residential gas customers of Duke Energy Ohio, a group the office counts at nearly 430,000. For them the practical question is whether the filing hits the monthly bill and whether any help exists if a bill gets past due. On the first part, the filing as described would add more than $24 a month at 10 Mcf of use, but only if PUCO approves it as filed, and the commission has not ruled. On the second, the reconnection fee is the cost that bites after a shutoff, and the proposal would lift it to $164 from a level $94 lower. A household that gets behind and has service cut off would face that charge on top of the overdue balance, so the safest preparation is to line up bill help before a notice arrives rather than after.
A gas bill that rises by more than $24 a month is $288 a year that older homeowners on fixed incomes have to find somewhere, and a $164 reconnection fee makes falling behind more expensive. The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit lays out heating, cooling and home-repair help for older homeowners and how to claim each program.
Open the heating-help kit for a Duke gas bill increase →
No hearing dates yet for the gas case
The OCC alert says no local public hearing dates have been set for the gas case. It says PUCO is expected to schedule local public hearings, and that the office will update the alert once dates and locations are announced. Testimony given at those hearings can become evidence in the case, according to the page.
A separate Duke Energy Ohio case, on electric rates, is further along. PUCO’s announcement of three public hearings on that electric distribution application is dated October 2, 2026. OCC’s alert on that filing says a typical customer’s bill would rise by about $8.32 per month, and it lists hearings for December 1 in Middletown and December 10 in Cincinnati and in Hamilton. Those dates belong to the electric case only. A household that takes both gas and electric service from Duke is dealing with two separate proceedings.
How shutoff protection worked last winter
Ohio ran a one-year program last winter that shows how bill help can be structured. OCC’s fact sheet on the Special Reconnect Order says it was available from October 13, 2025 through April 15, 2026. Customers of nine named utilities, Duke Energy among them, could pay only $175 to maintain or reconnect service even with a higher balance, with the remaining past-due amount moved onto a payment plan. The order capped the upfront reconnection fee at no more than $36 and applied no income test.
That order covered a defined window that has closed, and the fact sheet gives no sign of a renewal for this winter. Its figures are useful mainly as a benchmark: a $36 cap on reconnection last winter, against a $164 fee in Duke’s gas proposal. The same fact sheet says the limit of 175 percent of federal guidelines applies only to Winter Crisis Program assistance and to enrollment in the PIPP Plus payment plan, so those two programs do carry an income test and the Special Reconnect Order did not.
Weighing in before PUCO decides the gas case
The rate case page at the Office of the Consumers’ Counsel is the place to follow the Duke gas filing, and it is where the office says it will post hearing dates and locations once PUCO announces them. The consumer alert also lists the office’s phone line, 1-877-742-5622, and its email, [email protected], for customers with questions about the case.
Comments can go to PUCO directly. The alert points to the commission’s online public comment form for Case No. 26-0635, and to letters mailed to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, 180 E. Broad St., 11th Floor, Columbus, OH 43215, with the case number written on them. Before commenting, it helps to have the last twelve months of Duke gas bills on hand, since the Mcf used each month shows how far a household sits from the 10 Mcf figure behind the $24 estimate.
For help paying a bill, the alert links to a Find Assistance page on the OCC site, and the same office staffs the phone line above. The commission’s own record of Case No. 26-0635-GA-AIR will show whether the $164 reconnection fee and the more-than-$24 monthly increase survive to a final order.
A $164 reconnection fee on top of a late bill
A household that falls behind while Duke’s gas increase of more than $24 a month is pending could face a $164 fee just to get service restored, and the help programs have to be applied for in advance. The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit covers heating, cooling and home-repair help for older homeowners, and it includes an application log and renewal calendar for keeping track of each program’s deadlines.
Get the application log and renewal calendar kit before a Duke gas increase lands →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
