BGE Budget Billing

BGE's Budget Billing program lets customers spread out their annual BGE bills into even monthly payments.  The program is available to:

• All gas firm service customers (residential and commercial)

• All electric residential customers

• All Schedule G & GS non-residential customers

The monthly budget amount is calculated by estimating a customer's annual bill in even monthly payments over 11 months with the 12th month being settlement month.  In other words, the monthly bill is calculated by estimating the annual bill multiplied by 8.7% rounded to the nearest dollar.

The settlement month is based on the customer's heating type:

• If the customer uses gas or electricity for heating then their settlement month is August.

• If the customer does not use gas and electricity for heating and normally has higher use in the Summer (i.e. air conditioning), then their settlement month is February.

The customer's bill for the settlement month is calculated by taking the difference between the amounts previously billed and the actual charges based on the customer's use. 

• If the settlement difference is greater than the prior budget bill amount plus $12, the excess over the budget bill amount is carried forward to the new budget bill year and spread evenly over the next 12 months rounded to the nearest dollar. 

• If the settlement difference results in a customer having a credit, then the credit amount is continuously applied to the customer's next bill until the credit is gone.

Budget bill amounts are reviewed and generally adjusted if necessary effective in September, December, March and June.  The September (heating customers) and March (non heating customers) adjustments are formal reviews where the customer's actual use and charges along with BGE's projected rates are recognized.  Adjustments do not occur unless the new budget bill amount will be changed by at least $5.  The December and June adjustments are simply a review of the difference between billings and actual charges.  

When a customer enrolls with a gas or electricity supplier, the budget bill amount decreases immediately upon the effective date of the enrollment to reflect the fact that they are no longer purchasing the energy from BGE.  When a customer switches from one supplier to another supplier, no change is made.

BGE does not offer this service for the customer's supplier charges. However electricity suppliers can still calculate their own budget bill amounts to be displayed on BGE's bill.  The most common method is to include the electricity supplier's budget bill amount and description (up to 13 characters) in the EDI 810 SAC and TDS segments (See EDI Implementation Guidelines).  If the electricity supplier is reflecting a credit in the SAC segment, this must be shown as a positive number.  In addition, electricity suppliers may use the "Supplier Custom Message" field (up to 160 characters) to provide details or messages to the customer about the electricity supplier's budget bill program.