One Line Item on Your Con Ed Gas Bill Nearly Quadrupled. Here's How to Budget for It.
If your building heats with Con Edison gas, your 2027 budget needs a new number.
On September 1, 2026, a delivery charge called the Revenue Decoupling Mechanism (RDM) rose for multifamily heating customers from about 8.1¢ to about 30.8¢ per therm. At nearly four times its prior level, this increase runs through August 31, 2027 — and it’s easy to miss on a bill.
What It Means for Your Budget
According to our estimates, total gas costs for a multifamily heating account, supply included, will rise roughly 7% from January–August 2027 because of the RDM alone. If the elevated rate carries through the full year, that number rises to 11%.
Because the RDM is a delivery charge, it applies whether you buy gas from Con Ed or a third-party supplier. A fixed-price supply contract does not protect you from it.
What You Can Do Right Now
Confirm each account’s service class. Most NYC apartment buildings with gas heat are billed under Service Classification 3, Rate II (buildings with more than four dwelling units). Other classes moved differently (see the table below), so check before assuming the increase applies.
Rebuild the whole 2027 gas line. Updating only the supply price leaves the RDM out of your budget.
Budget the conservative case. Carry the current rate through December 2027. Con Ed’s next RDM statement is expected around September 2027 and the rate could reset lower, so mark that month on your calendar and adjust then.
Treat supply as a separate decision. Gas supply prices are favorable right now, and locking in during budget season makes sense for most buildings. It won’t offset the RDM.
Check the rest of the bill. Accounts that are at least 75% residential qualify for a lower sales tax rate in NYC (4.5% instead of 8.875%), so confirm your bills reflect it.
How M3 Can Help
While we can’t change the RDM, we can make sure it’s built into your plan. We track Con Ed’s rate statements as they are published, and we’ve already updated our clients’ 2027 budgets to include the new charge. If you’d like your portfolio’s gas budget rerun with the adjustment built in, or your bills reviewed for the sales tax and service-class issues above, get in touch.
Deeper Dive: What Is the RDM, and Why Is It Easy to Miss?
The RDM is a true-up: a correction between what Con Ed was approved to collect and what it actually collected.
Every year, the Public Service Commission approves a set amount of delivery revenue for each customer class. If Con Ed collects less, the RDM adds a per-therm charge to close the gap. If it collects more, the RDM gives money back. Con Ed took in less than the Commission approved from multifamily heating customers, so the September charge collects that gap back over the next 12 months.
Two things make it easy to overlook. It sits inside the delivery portion of the bill, not as its own headline line item, and it moves independently of the base rate changes approved in a rate case. Con Ed’s current rate plan raises gas delivery revenue by about 2.8% a year, yet the RDM alone can move costs far more than that.
RDM by Service Class (¢ per therm)
| Service class | Feb 1, 2025 | Feb 1, 2026 | Sep 1, 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SC 3 Rate II: multifamily, more than 4 units | 4.76 | 8.12 | 30.79 |
| SC 3 Rate I: multifamily, 4 units or fewer | 11.67 | 16.89 | 32.52 |
| SC 2 Rate I: commercial | 9.23 | 7.83 | 0.85 |
| SC 2 Rate II: commercial | 2.73 | 0.84 | (1.25) credit |
Sources: Con Ed RDM statements for February 2025, February 2026, and September 2026; PSC Con Edison gas rate case summary, January 2026.