Sometimes, looking at your electricity bill can be overwhelming. There are so many specifics in your bill’s details that it can be difficult to keep track of what’s what. In the sections below, we hope to straighten a few things out to make your next bill a little bit easier to read.
- Customer Charge – This is a monthly distribution charge that covers costs for billing, reading your meter and maintaining equipment.
- Distribution Charge – This is a charge for the actual use of the wires, transformers, substations, and anything else required to get electricity from power lines to you, the consumer
- State Tax Adjustment – This portion could be a charge, credit, or electricity rate that will reflect the state tax. The surcharge could vary bill to bill.
- Consumer Education Charge – This will only be on your bill if you have Met-Ed or PPL as your utility company. It is a charge for continuing education regarding your bill, shopping for electricity rates as well as energy efficiency and conservation.
- Generation Charge – This charge covers the actual production of electricity. If you have an alternate supplier, this will be in a separate section from the charges listed above.
- Transmission Charge – This portion is for moving the electricity from the generation facility to the distribution lines of a distribution company. This amount is based on federally regulated charges. If you have an alternate supplier, this amount is rolled into the generation section.
If Met-Ed is your utility company, you may also see some additional charges not listed above. They are all still regulated by the PUC and will remain that way even if you choose an alternate supplier. You could see solar requirements, default service support, non-utility generation, and smart meter. What each of those charges is for can be found on page two of your bill.
For those who have an alternate supplier, like Shipley Energy, the only difference in your bill is that the generation and transmission charges will be in a separate section. Everything else will remain the same.
If you have additional questions regarding the additional charges that are regulated by the PUC, please feel free to contact your utility company or check out their website. There is a lot of great information on PAPowerSwitch.com as well.
Understand your electric bill using this resource tool provided by PAPowerSwitch. Simply select your current electric company and view a sample bill with the charges explained!
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