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Atlanta Gas Light Charges on Your Georgia Gas Bill, Explained

Illustration: a house sitting on an underground pipe that ends in a padlocked meter.

Roughly half of a typical Georgia gas bill has nothing to do with the company that sends it. It is Atlanta Gas Light’s charge for delivery, passed straight through by your marketer, and it is identical whoever you buy from.

This is the most useful and least understood fact about the bill, because it sets a floor under what any marketer can charge you.

Why AGL is on a bill you did not get from AGL

Georgia split the gas business in two with the Natural Gas Competition and Deregulation Act of 1997. The pipes stayed a regulated monopoly. The sale of the gas was opened to competing marketers certificated by the Public Service Commission.

So Atlanta Gas Light owns the mains, the service line into your house and the meter on it. It reads that meter, it maintains the network, and it is who responds to a leak. It sells you nothing. Your marketer buys the gas, sets the price, and bills you for both its gas and AGL’s delivery in one statement.

What the charge covers

AGL’s base charge covers the pipes, the meter reading, and a capacity component AGL calls the DDDC, short for design day delivery capacity. The capacity part is what reserves enough pipeline capacity to serve your house on the coldest day of the year, which is why it is based on your own past winter usage rather than a flat rate for everyone.

On the PSC’s September 2026 chart the AGL base charge works out to $580.53 a year, about $39.71 a month. Standard 12-month fixed plans that month estimated out between roughly $1,073 and $1,227 a year in total, so the delivery charge is a little over half of a typical bill.

The August recalculation

The DDDC is recalculated each August from your household’s gas use during the previous winter’s coldest days.

This is the part that surprises people. A hard winter with heavy heating raises your capacity charge for the following year, and the increase appears on a bill from your marketer, which makes it look like a price rise from the marketer. It is not, and switching will not reverse it. Two identical houses on the same plan can carry different base charges because one ran the heat harder last January.

What this means for shopping

Because the delivery charge is constant across marketers, it cannot be a reason to choose one over another. But it changes how you should read a rate comparison in two ways.

It compresses the real differences. If half your bill is fixed, then a marketer advertising a rate 10% below another is not offering you a 10% saving on your bill. Our annual cost estimate adds the AGL base charge to every plan equally, deliberately, so that the comparison shows what you would actually pay rather than letting the common cost hide the real gap.

It makes flat charges matter more than they look. At the PSC’s assumed 641 therms a year, one cent per therm is worth $6.41 a year. One dollar on the marketer’s monthly service charge is worth $12. The flat numbers on a gas plan move your total more than the headline rate does.

Discounts on the AGL half

Atlanta Gas Light offers a discount on its base charge for customers 65 and over whose household income is at or below 200% of the federal poverty guideline. It applies to the delivery half of your bill rather than the gas, it is separate from any marketer’s senior plan, and you apply for it rather than receive it automatically.

In an emergency

Smell gas? Call Atlanta Gas Light at 877-427-4321, then 911 once you are safe.

That number is the same whoever bills you and does not change when you switch marketer. A marketer has no crew and no pipes; AGL does.

The Georgia Public Service Commission does not rank or endorse marketers.

Common questions

Can I shop for a cheaper Atlanta Gas Light charge?
No. AGL is a regulated monopoly and its delivery charge is the same whichever marketer bills you. It is the reason two marketers with identical per-therm rates still produce different annual costs only through their own service charges, and the reason no marketer can ever be dramatically cheaper than the rest.
Why does my AGL base charge change every year?
The capacity component, which AGL calls the DDDC, is recalculated each August from your own home's gas use during the previous winter's coldest days. A cold winter with heavy heating use can raise it for the following year even if nothing else about your household has changed.
Is Atlanta Gas Light the same as my gas marketer?
No, and this trips people up because the marketer's bill includes AGL's charges. AGL owns the pipes and the meter and delivers the gas. The marketer buys the gas, sets the rate and sends the bill. You choose the marketer; you cannot choose the deliverer.
Who do I call for a gas leak?
Atlanta Gas Light at 877-427-4321, then 911 once you are safe. That number does not change when you switch marketer, because AGL remains responsible for the pipes and the meter no matter who bills you.

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