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Here comes the sun.

And if you're not careful, here also come disconnect notices from Tucson Electric Power Co. a month sooner than a year ago if you don't pay your electric bill on time.

As we leave behind a winter that brought snow and record heating bills for many, folks should be looking at ways to prevent the financial crunch from continuing as they switch from gas heating to electric cooling, according to a longtime consumer-advocate group.

Miss a gas or electric payment twice in a year — during any consecutive 12 months for the gas company, and during the calendar year for the electric company — and you could be stuck paying deposits as high as your two highest bills, depending on the utility.

The relatively recent change to watch out for is the not-quite-year-old TEP policy regarding disconnect notices.

Before April of last year, TEP customers could accumulate two unpaid bills before a disconnect notice was issued, leaving 10 days to pay before their service was shut off.

But then in April the rule changed so a 10-day disconnect notice is issued after one bill remains unpaid when the next month's bill goes out, said Joe Salkowski, TEP spokesman.

"If customers have more than two payments that are late within a calendar year, under those circumstances we will ask for a deposit," Salkowski said.

The deposit is an estimate of two months' worth of your electric bill, based mainly on actual billed history at that address. But if you haven't lived there for very long, it is based on your history with the company as well as other usage at that address, he said.

After 12 months of paying your TEP bill on time, you get the deposit back, plus 6 percent interest.

But for people who live from paycheck to paycheck, paying the bill by the exact due date each month on top of putting down a hefty deposit for late payments can be a hardship, said Al Sterman, vice president of the Arizona Consumers Council, a 40-year-old statewide consumer-advocate group.

"It becomes very difficult for a large segment of the population to keep up with their utility bills," he said. "It seems that they're making it much more difficult for those who are on the edge to stay on the edge" without going over it.

At Southwest Gas Corp., late means the new bill comes when the old one hasn't been paid, but that's nothing new, said Libby Howell, company spokeswoman.

And when customers rack up three or more late payments in any consecutive 12-month period, they are asked to pay a deposit equal to twice their highest bill, she said.

"What's different this year is, everybody's bill is very much higher. That may have triggered someone to be late that isn't normally late," she said.

As of Monday, 2,814 Pima County customers were projected to be "Did Not Pays" — Southwest Gas customers who have reached the delinquency point and were scheduled to be turned off by April 1.

Last year's Did Not Pays for the same period totaled 1,217, Howell said. However, this year's numbers are projected, and a large number of those people likely will pay before April 1, she said.

The disconnect and deposit policies may seem coldhearted, but it's the best way for TEP to keep costs under control so paying customers don't have to foot the bill for those who don't pay, Salkowski said.

Historically, when TEP has gone before the Arizona Corporation Commission to set its rates — which are frozen until 2009 — the cost of unpaid bills is figured into the rates the company charges, he said.

"It is in there, and we're always trying to manage our costs on behalf of our customers, and this is one of them that we ought to be able to reduce as best we can."

Howell said the Southwest Gas deposit is based on the two highest bills because people should always be able to pay their highest bill.

"We're not like other businesses. We let you use our product first before you pay for it," she said. "You can't eat the groceries first and then pay for them."

Salkowski and Howell each emphasized the need for customers to call their utility companies right away when it looks like a bill might be too large.

Both companies have several options for working with customers to get the bills paid rather than turning off service, including setting up payment arrangements, low-income payment plans and equal-payment plans for future bills.

That's the customer's best bet, said consumer advocate Sterman.

"The biggest advice is, try if you possibly can, to put away today the equivalent of what a monthly bill might be during the summertime." he said. "Before you get into trouble and are not able to pay the bill, or at the time you can't pay the bill, call the company and say, 'Can we make payment arrangements?' and see if that works."

On StarNet: Learn different ways to conserve energy and reduce your heating and cooling bills at azstarnet.com/earth911