An amount, usually a flat fee, which is applied to all customers (or, alternately, applied only to customers who are not using energy or using only small amounts of energy) to cover the cost of maintaining the account, similar to an account administration charge. It is intended to insure that the utiluty can recover costs it may incur from maintaining an inactive account or an account with very low billing, and it is usually left up to the utility to decide how and when to levy this charge.

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