Quarterly Gas Rate Adjustments Explained: What the October Change Moves on an Ontario Bill, and What It Doesn't

The customer charge didn't move: $27.69 a month in EGD and $28.91 in each Union zone. You pay it even in a month when you use no gas. The regulator approves it once a year, and that annual rate case, not the QRAM, is where a change to it would come from.

Delivery charges are also set annually. The OEB's bill guide says Enbridge and Union delivery rates are adjusted once a year under a five-year incentive regulation framework tied to inflation. For Enbridge customers, storage costs sit inside the delivery line rather than on their own line.

Why delivery still moved a little

If delivery is set annually, why did every EGD delivery tier drop by 0.1054 ¢/m³ on October 1? Enbridge's rate FAQ explains that the quarterly change can show up as a small shift in delivery rates, because Enbridge uses natural gas to run its own delivery system. When the gas price changes, so does that operating cost.

The effect is real but small: $2.53 a year for a typical EGD home, and 29 to 49 cents a year across the Union zones. It isn't a delivery rate increase or decrease in the rate-case sense.

The rate adjustment that arrived alongside it

The biggest item on the October bill wasn't set by the QRAM at all. Each zone's rate sheet carries a line titled "Rate Adjustment (2024 Utility Earnings and Disposition of Deferral and Variance Accounts Clearance)." It settles balances from a separate OEB proceeding about Enbridge's 2024 results. It happens to take effect on the same date.

Union South is the exception. There, the adjustment is a charge, and it's the main reason Union South is the only zone where the typical bill goes up.

If you read both OEB documents, you'll see two different "annual bill change" figures for the same zone. For EGD, the rate sheet says −$19.86. The OEB backgrounder says −$28.67. Neither is wrong. They measure different things.

The rate sheet adds this quarter's rate changes to this quarter's new one-time adjustment. The backgrounder compares your whole bill before and after, so it also counts the removal of July's one-time adjustment. In EGD, July carried a one-time charge of about $8.82 for the 2023 energy-conservation program balances. That charge doesn't repeat in October, and its disappearance counts as part of the decrease.

The reconciliation works in all four zones:

The EGD columns add to −$28.68; the OEB reports −$28.67 because of rounding. Annual bill totals are the OEB's backgrounder figures for a typical customer.

Read the table across and a pattern shows up. In three of four zones, the quarterly lines alone moved the typical annual bill by less than $7. The one-time items did most of the work. Anyone comparing heating-cost headlines, such as the light fuel oil price surge on the heating-oil side, should keep that distinction in mind.

Annual figures hide when you actually feel a change. Gas bills are driven by consumption, and consumption follows the thermometer. Enbridge notes that many households spend the most on gas in the three coldest months.

To make that concrete, here is an illustration, not a measured profile: assume January accounts for about 15% of annual use and a midsummer month for about 2.5%. The OEB doesn't publish a standard monthly split, so treat these shares as round numbers for scale.

The arithmetic is simple: cents per cubic metre times cubic metres, divided by 100. For EGD, that's 0.1779 × 360 ÷ 100 = $0.64. For Union South, the quarterly lines add $6.64 a year across 2,200 m³, which is about 0.30 ¢/m³, or roughly $1.00 in a 330 m³ January.

So the October price reset, on its own, is worth less than a dollar in most homes' coldest month. What moves a January bill is how many cubic metres you burn. A 10% colder month in EGD adds 36 m³. At the new effective supply rate plus transportation and delivery, that costs far more than the price change does.

That's also why the gas-side story rarely lines up with the electricity side. Readers following the Global Adjustment credit on hydro bills will recognize the pattern: a line that looks dramatic in a headline and turns out small on a household bill.

Some Ontario households buy their gas supply from a licensed energy retailer (a gas marketer) under a contract, while Enbridge still delivers it. The October decision affects these customers differently, and the difference is mechanical, not a judgement on contracts.

Your gas supply price doesn't change on October 1. It's whatever your contract says. As the OEB's energy contract rules state, the Board licenses retailers but doesn't regulate the prices they charge.

What still changes is everything Enbridge provides. The customer charge, delivery and, in most cases, transportation all still apply. For a typical EGD marketer customer, the OEB puts the October change at −$8.92 a year where Enbridge provides transportation and −$10.84 where the marketer provides it. Those figures exclude transportation from Dawn.

If you're reviewing a contract, the OEB's consumer protections are worth knowing. There's a 10-day cooling-off period after you acknowledge receiving the contract. Your retailer must confirm the contract with you by phone 10 to 45 days after you get a written copy. You can also cancel up to 30 days after your second bill under the contract without a cancellation fee, though you still owe the bills themselves.

Your first bill after October 1 will probably show both sets of rates. Enbridge's rate notices say that charges for gas used from the effective date are calculated at the new rates. A billing period that runs, say, from mid-September to mid-October applies the old rates to the September gas and the new rates to the October gas. Seeing two rates on one bill doesn't mean you were double-charged.

Three checks will tell you whether the bill matches the decision:

1. Find the effective supply rate. For EGD, the Gas Supply Charge plus the gas component of the Cost Adjustment should total 9.1080 ¢/m³ for October gas. For Union zones, Gas Commodity plus Gas Price Adjustment should match the effective rate in the table above.
2. Confirm the fixed charge didn't move. $27.69 in EGD, $28.91 in the Union zones.
3. Look for the Rate Adjustment line. In Union South, the OEB says this charge appears on October, November and December bills in three equal instalments, totalling about $14.68 for a typical customer, or roughly $4.89 a bill. In the other zones, the rate sheets express it per cubic metre, and your amount will depend on your use.

HST applies on top of these charges, so the total you pay will be higher than the sum of the rate lines.

For broader context on energy costs heading into winter, the Bank of Canada's energy-price warning covers the macro picture. It's a different question from what your gas bill's rate lines are doing.