Illinois Commerce Commission grants ComEd’s $14M rate decrease request

The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) signed off on a request from ComEd this week that will see service delivery charges decrease by $14 million in 2021.

The decrease will be compared to rates as they stood this past January and follows an eight-month-long proceeding. It is the third consecutive rate decrease for ComEd and its fifth rate decrease in the past decade. As a result, average monthly bills for residential customers will be brought down to $82, or a decrease of about $1 per month.

“Families and businesses need to be able to count on reliable energy at this uncertain time, and they need to have confidence that we’re doing everything we can to keep our costs low and bills manageable,” Joe Dominguez, CEO of ComEd, said. “I’m proud that we’re able to provide a third rate decrease in a row during this public health crisis. The 6,000 women and men of ComEd have worked to implement smart grid investments that are consistently providing record reliability, efficiencies, and savings that we pass on to our customers.”

As it stands, ComEd’s total average monthly residential rate of 13.05 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) is 10 percent below the average of the top 20 U.S. metro areas by population. Its industrial and commercial rates are also on the lower end of the curve, at 7.37 cents per kWh and 9.79 cents per kWh, respectively.

Contributing to these lower rates are energy efficiency programs and the smart grid program, which has led to heightened reliability on the larger grid. The lower rates induced by energy efficiency programs have helped ComEd customers save $5.2 billion on their energy bills since 2008 and cut carbon emissions by more than 55 billion pounds.