State backs utility outreach to underserved communities
JACKSON—The Mississippi Public Service Commission has partnered with Atmos Energy to support natural gas expansion into rural communities throughout the state via a five-year program, during which Atmos Energy will invest up to $5 million each year.
“The program was in response to MPSC Chairman Brandon Presley’s request for innovative ideas on how Atmos Energy, as the largest and most geographically spread gas utility in the state, can extend more natural gas lines out to underserved rural Mississippians,” Atmos Energy’s Vice President of Marketing Matt Davidson told American Gas. “By working constructively with the commission and public utilities staff, we were able to pull together a complex and comprehensive settlement that resolved a number of outstanding rate dockets from which we could ultimately generate the funds we could apply toward this expansion.”
Money will be used “primarily to fund the increased cost required to extend main extensions into rural areas, which, by necessity, has to precede the secondary cost of building out our service lines to individual homes and businesses,” Davidson told us. Rural residents in Nettleton, Plantersville, Starkville, Grenada, Tunica and Hernando already have expressed interest in the expansion.
According to Atmos Energy, work on the expansion project began this past spring.
“Our goal is to make service available to 1,000 new rural customers annually,” Davidson said. “We’re marketing the expansion through our SmartChoice energy efficiency program, which makes natural gas service even more affordable for the citizens of rural Mississippi.”