Exelon to separate utility, competitive energy businesses into new companies

Exelon Corp. announced this week that it intends to separate Exelon Utilities and Exelon Generation into two publicly traded companies.

“Our industry is changing at a rapid pace and our customers expect us to continuously innovate to stay ahead of growing demand for clean energy, evolving business conditions, and changing technology,” Christopher Crane, president and CEO of Exelon, said. “Now is the right time to take this step to best serve our customers, employees, community partners, and shareholders. These are two strong, distinct businesses that will benefit from the strategic flexibility to focus on their unique customer, market, and community priorities.”

Under the Board of Directors-approved plan, the six regulated electric and gas utilities comprising Exelon Utilities will now unite under a company named RemainCo. The competitive power generation and customer-facing energy businesses that comprise Exelon Generation will become SpinCo. Exelon believes the move will better allow the respective companies to meet specific customer needs and maintain the long-term investment, but what it will do immediately is create the largest fully regulated transmission and distribution utility company in the United States, as well as the largest carbon-free power producer.

RemainCo will serve more than 10 million customers and operate in five states, plus the District of Columbia. Among its utilities are Atlantic City Electric, BGE, ComEd, Delmarva Power, Pepco, and PECO. Over the next four years, RemainCo intends to invest $27 billion in grid modernization. It will also push transportation electrification, along with solar and battery storage options.

SpinCo will immediately bring to bear more than 31,000 MW of generating capacity provided by nuclear, wind, solar, natural gas, and hydroelectric assets. Around 12 percent of the total U.S. carbon-free energy supply will stem from SpinCo alone.