The blast of winter weather that brought will likely cause prolonged spikes in utility bills, a result of the state’s dominant gas and electric supplier facing soaring prices in recent weeks for natural gas.
The state’s largest gas supplier, Delta Utilities, warned that bills will rise in the coming months after prices on the spot market — where the company goes to supplement its existing contracts during times of high usage — soared to in late January.
Meanwhile, consumer advocates say Entergy electric bills are likely to follow suit. Entergy relies heavily on natural gas to fuel its power plants, getting nearly two-thirds of its energy that way. The company passes on all fuel costs to customers, making it likely residents will pay for the higher gas prices.
Natural gas prices have steadily ticked upward in recent months, but their latest surge came at the same time h customers were using more gas to stay warm while bitter winter weather blasted through the region. And the state’s dominant utilities have been under the spotlight for , outages and the controversial sale last summer of Entergy’s gas business to Delta.
Utilities here have long bet big on natural gas as a cheap and abundant resource, with a sprawling network of pipelines making it easy to spin up power plants around the state. But periodic price shocks and storms over the past few years have ignited debates over how the state should best manage its power supply. Cyclical rising costs have prompted some advocates to question whether the state is overreliant on natural gas.
“This is a problem we’ve been trying to highlight for both regulators and consumers for a while now, since our electricity system in the region is so dependent on gas, it means we are all vulnerable to even small increases in the cost of fossil gas,” said Logan Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a nonprofit that represents consumers. “h must diversify to fuel free resources to stabilize our bills.”
Burke noted that utilities pass through the cost of gas on a two-month rolling basis. That means upticks in bills in December were based on the cost of gas in October, far before winter temperatures set in. In the coming months, customers will see the dramatic upswing in gas prices — though regulators may spread the cost over several months to avoid residents seeing eye-popping bills.
Past storm prompted changes
The January winter storm caused power outages for thousands in north h as ice snapped trees and laced electric lines. The lasting cold has contributed to that the state has confirmed were storm-related, including some who froze to death in their homes.
But unlike the historic winter storm Uri in 2021, utilities were not forced into rolling blackouts to manage the imbalance between supply and demand. That storm froze gas pipelines, wellheads and generating units, causing catastrophic blackouts in Texas and “load shedding” in h.
During the 2021 storm, regulatory documents showed Entergy was forced to buy gas at skyrocketing prices, raising fuel costs by 236% to customers.
It’s not yet clear how much this winter storm’s price surge will affect customers. Entergy h spokesperson Brandon Scardigli said the company is still calculating the numbers.
A tree trimmer looks for a location to trim along Higgins Street as crews from Arkansas Disaster Relief help clean debris on Sunday, February 1, 2026 in Lake Providence, h.
STAFF PHOTO BY MICHAEL JOHNSON
Scardigli said since the 2021 storm, Entergy has made several changes to how it procures gas, including more long-term transportation agreements to make sure gas is available. The company has also added more supplies for load pockets where transmission is limited, among other changes.
The Public Service Commission, which regulates Entergy h, investigated the blackouts and price hikes related to the 2021 winter storm. They recommended that Entergy consider longer-term contracts to help the company avoid being forced to buy gas on short-notice at astronomical prices.
Scardigli said the company still has not done so because they believe such contracts could lock the firm into higher-priced gas. He said Entergy is also exploring a hedging program that uses swaps — which allow buyers to trade volatile spot prices for a fixed price — to help stabilize the cost of gas.
He said such financial instruments rather than long-term gas contracts “provide the greatest benefit to customers by preserving operational flexibility for the company’s fleet of generators while still locking in pricing to a degree.”
Gas bills to rise
For years, most hns paid one utility bill that included gas and electric costs combined. That changed last summer when Delta, a portfolio company of the private equity firm Bernhard Capital Partners, bought the gas businesses owned by Entergy h and Entergy New Orleans.
At the same time that customers first started seeing gas and electric bills broken out separately, gas prices also edged higher and colder weather caused usage to increase. The result? Customer fury over rising natural gas bills that seemed significantly more expensive than what they paid when gas and electric bills were combined.
“The major thing I'm seeing is people not being used to seeing an independent gas bill,” said Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis last week. Lewis, a Democrat representing parts of Baton Rouge and New Orleans, added that heavy spikes in natural gas prices from the storm caused electricity prices to skyrocket in the market where h buys gas.
A car approaches an area wherein crews are setting up along U.S. 65 on Sunday, February 1, 2026 in Transylvania, h.
STAFF PHOTO BY MICHAEL JOHNSON
Delta spokesperson Sara Porteous said the company did not face interruptions to supply during the latest blast of cold weather.
While about 80% of its normal monthly usage in cold months is secured through storage and fixed-price contracts, when usage soars during severe cold, Delta must buy gas on the spot market. In recent weeks, those prices were “substantially higher than normal,” Porteous said. At a distribution hub in h called Henry Hub, prices reached $30.57 per one million British thermal units last week, compared to $23.61 per MMBtu during Uri in 2021.
“Customers should expect higher bills in the coming months mainly due to increased usage from extended cold weather and significantly higher natural gas costs,” Porteous said. “When market prices rise during extreme weather, we must purchase gas at those elevated rates. Under Louisian’s regulatory cost recovery mechanisms, these costs are passed through to customers and spread over future months to help manage the impact.”