Oct. 6--Consumers who heat their homes with electricity may find themselves in a pinch similar to what fuel oil users experienced last winter.

Electric heat customers could see a 34 percent increase in costs after rate caps expire at the end of the year. As of January, homeowners who typically use 1,500 kilowatts of electricity monthly, including heat, would see average bills increase to $203 from $151, said Ryan Hill, a spokesman for PPL Electric Utilities, the Allentown-based corporation that is the region's dominant electricity supplier.

As electric heat users brace for the price switch, oil and natural gas users should be more comfortable with their winter bills.

Fuel oil prices are running about 40 percent below last fall's rates.

"For the (fuel oil) buyer, things look pretty rosy," said Andrew Reed, an analyst at Energy Security Analysis Inc., near Boston. "There's really no tightness in the market at all."

Natural gas prices have been falling since early in the year. National consumption declined 12 percent through June and underground gas storage volumes hit an all-time peak last week, the government reported.

"There's a lot of gas and weak demand," Mr. Reed said. "There's really not much room for prices to go up."

UGI Penn Natural Gas, the area's top supplier, expects prices to decrease about 2.5 percent in December, spokesman Joseph Swope said. The utility, a subsidiary of Valley Forge-based UGI Corp., must file for new gas-cost rates quarterly.

"We're estimating that an average residential heating bill will be about 9 percent lower than last year," Mr. Swope said.

The fuel oil decrease, though, is the season's most-dramatic energy move.

Peckville-based Santarelli and Sons Oil is charging $2.19 a gallon for fuel oil, 43 percent less than the $3.79 it charged a year ago.

"We're not getting complaints," manager Ken Santarelli said, recalling the volatility of the summer of 2008, when fuel oil briefly topped $4 a gallon. "Everybody's claiming it's going to be pretty stable."

Last fall, oil heat customers placed partial orders because they couldn't afford to fill their tanks, recalled Russ Newell Jr., vice president of Newell Fuel Service in Trucksville.

His company is also charging $2.19 a gallon for fuel oil, and he's guardedly optimistic about the outlook.

"Hopefully, it will drop down some more and make it easier on the consumer," Mr. Newell said.

Natural gas heats 64 percent of households in Lackawanna County and 46 percent in Luzerne County, according to newly released Census Bureau 2008 estimates. Fuel oil heats 25 percent of the residences in Luzerne County and 14 percent in Lackawanna. Electricity heats 20 percent of the homes in Luzerne County and 14 percent in Lackawanna County.

Contact the writer: jhaggerty@timesshamrock.com

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