Are there any extra charges or Franchise Fee surcharge?
There are no “extra” charges paid by a customer that purchases natural gas from a third party supplier – that is, a gas ESP. Under PG&E’s current bill format, the bill is calculated “as if” the customer was bundled. Then the PG&E procurement portion of the bill is backed up as a negative amount called the “Procurement Credit”. A “Franchise Fee Surcharge” is added to the PG&E portion of the bill. This is NOT an extra charge for unbundled customers — instead this line item replaces the franchise fees that are built into the PG&E procurement charge, and thus backed out in the Procurement Credit line item. This surcharge is collected under rate schedule G-SUR to pay franchise fees (roughly 1%) on the value of the fuel supply being provided by the gas ESP.
