sci.energy

"pepita@" wrote in message
news:8ef5db73-8011-4dbb-82d1-b1aabb1ef711@...
On Feb 16, 3:24 pm, "Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coordinator"
wrote:
> I'm curious how I compare with others in my natural gas usage.
>
> I used 120 therms in the past 30 days (about 4 therms per day).
> HOW MANY THERMS DID YOU USE LAST MONTH?
>

My bill states 27 days in the last billing period. 158ccf is the
amount of natural gas that I am being billed for. Is that the same
unit you are referencing?

--

CCF stands for 'hundred cubic feet' (think of the Roman numeral for 100,
'C')

Since natural gas is almost pure methane in most parts, and methane has an
energy content of something like 1050 BTU/ft^3, then 100 ft^3 of methane is
about 105,000 BTU.

In many states, the gas company is required to sample their gas regularly
and analyse its true heating value. Based on this, they come up with a
conversion between CCF of their gas supply and BTU. For those billed in
'Therms', you will see CCF and a conversion to Therms somewhere on your
bill. If your usage is small (say, <100 CCF), the numbers come out the same
almost all the time. For higher usage there will be some difference in the
two (such as mine last month, 151 CCF and 155 Therm).

By billing in Therms, customers don't get 'cheated' into paying the same for
a cubic foot of low-grade NG that has significant amounts of CO2 mixed in it
as they would pay for higher-grade NG.

Maybe you're state regulates the gas content instead so that a CCF is
guaranteed a certain minimum heating value??

daestrom