Customer Billing & Payment

To assist electricity suppliers in the billing and payment processes, BGE has divided the information into the following categories:

A.  Sending Meter Usage to Electricity Supplier

B.  Customer Billing

C.  Sample BGE Bills

D.  Taxes

E.  Customer Payment Processing for Consolidated Billing

F.  Providing Billing & Payment Info to Electricity Suppliers

Electricity suppliers should also familiarize themselves with Maryland's Electric Choice rules that are covered in Section 12 of the BGE Electricity Supplier Coordination Tariff.  

A. Sending Meter Usage To Electricity Suppliers

• Once the meter has been read, BGE will send an 867MU transaction to the electricity supplier after the meter reading passes BGE's required edits.

• Interval data will not be transmitted by BGE through an 867IU (See EDI Implementation Guidelines).  The electricity supplier must go to the CDWeb to access this data.  (Click on Customer Consumption Data for more information)

• BGE will pro-rate the meter usage when more than one electricity supplier is active for a billing period and will generate an 867MU (See EDI Implementation Guidelines) to each electricity supplier.

• The electricity supplier must send an 824 transaction (See EDI Implementation Guidelines) with the rejection reason if they reject the 867MU.

• If BGE has changed a meter during a billing period, the new and old meter information will be sent to the electricity supplier at the same time as the 867MU.

B.  Customer Billing

The customer must choose a billing option at the time of enrollment.  The customer billing options include:

• Dual Billing - Customers receive two bills, one from the electricity supplier for generation and one from BGE for distribution charges.  

• BGE Consolidated Billing - Customers receive a BGE bill containing both BGE and electricity supplier charges.

• Electricity Supplier Consolidated Billing - Customers receive an electricity supplier bill containing both BGE and the electricity supplier charges.

Dual Billing

The type of accounts below must use the Dual Billing option.  These will be identified in the historical usage requests in CDWeb.

• Manual Accounts - Includes street lights, unmetered traffic lights, sub-deduct meters, co-generation, aggregately billed, excessive number of meters for CIS limits, and multiple TOD meter accounts.

• EDI Billed Accounts - where customers have their BGE charges EDI billed.

• Summary Billed - where customers have multiple accounts and receive a bill summary.

BGE Consolidated Billing

• After receiving the 867MU from BGE, the electricity supplier has 3 business days to send the 810 transaction (See EDI Implementation Guidelines) to BGE for their charges to appear on the BGE bill. 

• BGE will not store or hold an 810 Original transaction that has missed the 3 business day window and will send an 824 rejection transaction (See EDI Implementation Guidelines).

• If the electricity supplier misses the window, they may bill their charges independently or re-submit the 810 during the next billing cycle window.

• When re-submitting the previous month's charges, the electricity supplier must send the old charges before the current month's charges.

• If system problems within BGE prevent the successful receipt and processing of an 810, the 3 business day window will be extended.

• Electricity supplier charges submitted for billing can include late payment fees, energy charges and unmetered charges.  BGE does not verify the 810 for accuracy for any amount invoiced.

• Electricity supplier's outstanding balances will appear as a lump sum each month.

• There is no limit to the number of billing determinants an electricity supplier can send.  The following are guidelines for these billing determinants (See Sample BGE Bills below) on BGE's bills:

a. There are two fields for messages, one for regulated and one for electricity supplier messages.  Each message field has a maximum capacity of 160 characters.

b. The electricity supplier's name is limited to 28 characters.

c. The description of each billing determinant cannot exceed 13 characters.

d. Rates are limited to 8 characters.

e. The Demand (kW) and unit (kWh) descriptors are limited to 5 characters.

f. The maximum dollar amount is $9,999,999.99

C. Sample BGE Bills

• Sample residential electric bill with electricity supplier charges & Rate Stabilization credit (pdf)

• Sample residential gas and electric bill with gas supplier charges & MEAP credit (pdf)

• Sample commercial gas and electric bill with electricity supplier & PAL charges during summer crossover (pdf)

• Sample hourly service bill during summer crossover (pdf)

Electricity Supplier Consolidated Billing

• Only non-residential accounts are eligible for electricity supplier consolidated billing.

• The electricity supplier may enroll a maximum of 50 accounts.

• Gas charges, private area lighting and merchandise business charges will be transferred off the electric account.

• After the 867MU has been sent to the electricity supplier, this type of billing is mostly manual.  BGE will mail the BGE bill to the electricity supplier within 2 business days of being produced.  It will accomplish this by using the supplier's mailing address as the customer's Bill To Address . 

• The electricity supplier will need to send to BGE authorization from the customer to modify the customer's Bill To Address for each account that the electricity supplier is enrolling. 

• If the electricity supplier is sending payment via check, it will need to send payment along with the BGE account number to:

Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.

P.O. Box 1475

Baltimore MD 21203

• If the electricity supplier is sending payment via wire transfer, BGE will provide the appropriate banking information.

• All payments made by the electricity supplier or customer will follow the payment posting rules and regulations for BGE.  (See Customer Payment Processing below. 

• The electricity supplier must send payment for the total BGE bill and must honor the BGE due date that is on the BGE bill.

D. Taxes

• BGE is responsible for calculation, collection, and remittance of gross receipt taxes, franchise tax on delivery service, State taxes on delivery service and local energy taxes.

• Electricity suppliers are responsible for calculation, collection, and remittance of States taxes for all products and services provided by them.

•  When customers are exempt from taxes, it is the responsibility of BGE and the electricity supplier to separately procure any required tax exemption certificates from the customer.

E.  Customer Payment Processing

• Once the payment has been received by BGE, the payment will be posted to the customer's account using the following priority:

- BGE Gas Arrears

- BGE Electric Arrears

- Gas Supplier Arrears

- Electricity Supplier Arrears

- BGE Current Gas Charges

- BGE Current Electric Charges

- Gas Supplier Current Charges

- Electricity Supplier Current Charges

- BGE Value Added Services Arrears

- BGE Value Added Services Current Charges

• For BGE Consolidated Billing, BGE will send the 820 Remittance Advice (See EDI Implementation Guidelines) to the electricity supplier within one business day of receiving the customer's payment.  This 820 is used to show payments posted to the electricity supplier on a daily basis as well as any credits and debits affecting charges billed by the electricity supplier. 

• Within 4 business days of receiving the customer's payment, BGE will remit payment to the electricity supplier's bank.  BGE cannot send a negative balance.  Any debits that would force the total into a negative balance will be held for a future date in an attempt to satisfy the debit.  

F.  Providing Billing & Payment Information to Electricity Suppliers

On January 1, 2006, in accordance with the new COMAR Subtitle 53- Electricity Supplier and Gas Supplier - Residential Consumer Protection regulations, BGE will provide electricity suppliers with customer billing and payment information for residential customers only.  This will be provided through a Pro-Active 824 transaction. (See EDI Implementation Guidelines).