Whether we like it or not, ComEd, Chicago’s not-so-beloved electric utility, is a major player in Illinois politics, and we must learn to work with the utility, not against it, to fight the climate crisis. The Climate and Equitable Jobs Act passed last year aims to get 1 million electric vehicles on Illinois roads by 2030. Economic and political forces are converging to usher in a new era of electric transportation, but the electric grid was not built to support such a drastic increase in electricity demand.
Those of us who own or are considering buying an electric vehicle have a responsibility to partner with our utility. Everyone needs to hold hands and get along as we navigate the strange new world of electric cars together. Specifically, EV owners must cede some control of their cars to ComEd in three ways.
First, owners must enroll in managed charging programs. Managed charging can be active or passive, but both involve ComEd’s involvement to shift your charging to certain times of the day. Active managed charging relies on communication signals directly from the utility to control charging when your vehicle is connected to the charger. This allows ComEd to match total EV load to grid conditions at a granular level.
ComEd now offers indirect managed charging via time-of-use rates, which incentivize you to shift your charging to times when the electricity is less expensive. These less-expensive times are known as “off-peak.”
If people charged their vehicles at their convenience, electricity demand would be unpredictable and could fluctuate significantly, requiring large capital investments in additional electricity generation and infrastructure upgrades with the costs passed on to ratepayers — i.e., you and everyone else, including low-income folks who are less likely to own electric vehicles. To save money, make money, help the climate and prevent further systemic injustices in our society, enroll in ComEd’s managed charging programs.
Second, in the future, drivers may have to give ComEd access to their cars’ data. Your EV is a computer on wheels that is constantly processing and transmitting rich information about your battery’s state of charge, mileage, location and many other metrics. Consenting to share your car’s data with ComEd would allow the utility to design programs and build software that enhance the driver experience while also protecting the grid.
Have you ever forgotten to charge your phone only to realize the next morning that the battery is dead when you need your phone? We all have. Allowing ComEd access to your car’s data could enable helpful reminders to charge your car when the battery is low or suggestions to charge your car when the production of renewables on the grid is high. ComEd may not be offering such programs now, but keep an eye out for them soon.
Lastly, you may have to sell your electricity back to ComEd. Consider enrolling in vehicle-to-grid programs once they become available. Under this kind of program, ComEd would pay you to sell the energy stored in your car’s battery during periods of grid stress. The Inflation Reduction Act signed this year makes bidirectional chargers eligible for a tax credit for the next 10 years. Such chargers are rare at the moment, but this will be another way for you to make money, discourage fossil fuel plant investments and prevent rate hikes across the board. With a bidirectional charger, your car battery can also serve as a backup power source for your home.
Mass adoption of electric vehicles is coming much faster than any grid overhauls or restructuring of giant utilities. While some of the programs mentioned don’t yet exist in Chicago, they almost certainly will soon as pilots are now underway across the country.
There are more than 1.1 million registered passenger vehicles in Chicago today. What happens once they are all electric? Can the grid handle all that additional electricity demand? Not if we don’t reimagine our relationship with ComEd.
Michael Jehl is a fellow at the Clean Energy Leadership Institute and a quantitative analyst at Demand Side Analytics specializing in electric vehicle data analysis.
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