Photo by Samer Farha.

If you’re reading this right now and you live inside the District, you probably get a friendly visit in your mailbox (or your email inbox) from a Pepco bill every month. But even among an ocean of cable, internet, gas and cell phone bills which are bloated with all kinds of taxes and surcharges, Pepco’s billing stands out. The news that the D.C. Public Service Commission has rejected the utility’s request to add a proposed 15th surcharge to District customers’ bills is incredibly good news — as much for customers’ ability to read and understand their bill as the small savings that it may mean.

To illustrate: let’s have some fun and play a quick game. Below is a list of 15 charges. I paid for 11 of them on my most recent Pepco bill. Can you guess the four that I made up? Answers after the jump.

Customer Charge
Regional Transmission Fee
Energy Distribution Charge
Outage Resource Charge
Energy Assistance Trust Fund
Sustainable Energy Trust Fund
Distribution/Regulation Fund
Public Space Occupancy Surcharge
Delivery Tax
Residential Aid Discount Surcharge
Minimum Generation Charge
Energy Generation Charge
Procurement Cost Adjustment
Minimum Transmission Charge
Standard Offer Service Tax