Wasn't trying to win .. just trying to make ya feel a bit better about the cost being average. Mine has gradually gone up over the years of price increases .. was 170 when i first built the house and now is almost 230 bucks.

Also what were they using to base the usage cost on? Previous owners bills maybe?

There's no previous owner as it was just finished being built a couple weeks ago. They just wanted to know how big it was and how many people were going to live in it. At first I thought "That's neat that they realize another person in the house means more body heat being output" but in retrospect they probably see it as another person using electronics and stuff which uses energy.

They probably just pull some number out of the air to save them actually having to check the meter. I told them not to average it out.

It gets balanced out by the end of the year though and earlier if you find you're paying too much / too little and call in. Seeing as how I didn't have to wait on their phone line for more than a minute before talking to someone I don't think it sounds like that bad of an option.

yeah its 550 a person, which includes heat, power, tv, internet, blah blah