This AP article describes how the anticipation of higher natural gas and heating oil prices this winter has induced more customers than usual to opt for fixed-bill spreading of their winter fuel costs across a year’s bills. Someone should do a study of these moves and tie it to estimates of customer price elasticity of demand, for natural gas, heating oil, and electricity.
Although I’ve heard that we have quite a lot of heating oil in storage, so customers in the Northeast (who disproportionately rely on heating oil) are only in for high prices if they have a really cold winter.