Girding for everything from the proliferation of data centers and EVs to catastrophic weather events, ComEd has unveiled its next four-year grid plan, the utility’s blueprint for the future of electrification.
The $15.3 billion plan, filed Friday with the Illinois Commerce Commission, covers investments in technology and infrastructure ComEd is looking to implement between 2028 and 2031 to meet projected increased demand for electricity in the utility’s service territory across northern Illinois.
If approved by the ICC — a process that is expected to take 11 months — the proposed grid plan focuses on adding new substations, the growth of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, and replacing aging equipment to ensure reliable delivery to ComEd’s 4.1 million customers.
“We need to invest in reliability and resiliency,” ComEd President and CEO Gil Quiniones told the Tribune. “We need to invest in capacity and expansion because of new business.”
While ComEd will not file a rate request reflecting the new four-year grid plan until next year, it is projected to increase the monthly residential customer bill by $2.50 to $3.00 starting in 2028, with “similar adjustments in subsequent plan years,” the utility said in a news release.
Mandated by the state’s Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, a 2021 bill catalyzing the transition to 100% renewable energy sources, this is the second four-year grid plan for ComEd. Quinones said the new plan is a continuation of the first one, which covered grid investments from 2024 to 2027, but reflects the acceleration of electrification.
In December 2024, the ICC approved ComEd’s first four-year grid plan, which had been refiled and reduced after regulators rejected the utility’s initial proposal, finding it failed to comply with several affordability and environmental components required by CEJA.
ComEd said Tuesday the actual investments associated with the first grid plan came in at $12.3 billion.
The new grid plan seeks to build on ComEd’s network of 810 substations to create more capacity. The utility said it is seeing major increases in demand at more than 70 substations spread out across its 11,429-square-mile territory, which stretches from about 100 miles south of Chicago to Iowa, Wisconsin and Lake Michigan.
The utility is planning to build five new substations to bolster areas that have seen a spike in demand due to data centers, manufacturing and electrification, a ComEd spokesperson said Tuesday. Examples of electrification include more new homes and businesses being built with electric heat, rather than gas.
Also driving demand is the adoption of electric vehicles and building out the state’s charging infrastructure. In Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker has set the goal of having 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030, but the state has a long way to go.
There are 164,000 EVs registered in the state as of January, according to data posted online by the secretary of state’s office. The vast majority are registered in ComEd’s service territory.
“There are over 10,000 charging ports just in ComEd service territory,” Quiniones said. “It’s still growing.”
Other system upgrades proposed for the new grid plan include refreshing the current meter fleet, developing flexible interconnections to incorporate more renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, and “hardening” substations to withstand the increasing frequency of severe weather events.
The ICC is expected to rule on the new grid plan by December, with ComEd then submitting a multiyear rate filing in 2027. If approved, the grid plan and subsequent rate impacts would be implemented beginning in 2028.
Sarah Moskowitz, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, said in a statement Tuesday that the nonprofit consumer group plans to analyze the proposal to identify and push back on wasteful spending by the utility.
“CUB is disappointed to see ComEd come in with another bloated, expensive grid plan,” Moskowitz said. “Everyone supports a strong distribution system, but ComEd has a responsibility to maintain its grid in a way that benefits customers and doesn’t bankrupt them.”
Last month, the ICC sliced $25.4 million from ComEd’s $268.5 million annual rate reconciliation request. The approved $243 million rate adjustment will add an average of $3.10 per month to the average residential customers bill beginning in January, the utility said. ComEd customers are already dealing with higher delivery charges after the ICC approved a four-year, $606 million rate hike in December 2024 as part of the utility’s first power grid improvement plan, increasing average residential customer bills by $1.84 per month through 2027.
ComEd will file for a 2025 rate reconciliation in April, which if approved would raise delivery rates again in 2027.
In addition to increased delivery charges, ComEd customers have seen electricity supply charges skyrocket over the past year, in large part due to increased demand from the proliferation of data centers.
PJM Interconnection manages the electricity supply grid for 13 states, including ComEd’s 4.1 million customers in northern Illinois. In July, an annual capacity auction for expected reserve electricity needed during peak demand jumped 22% to a then-record $329.17 per Megawatt-day, meaning even higher supply prices for ComEd and its customers beginning in June 2026.
Those supply charges could go up even more down the road after PJM released the results of a new auction last month, setting the capacity price at a record $333.44 per Megawatt-day beginning in June 2027.
In December, ComEd announced it would be rebating $803 million as part of the state’s Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which requires nuclear plants to issue customers a Carbon Mitigation Credit when energy prices are high.
The credits are a pass-through from Constellation, the former power generation subsidiary of Exelon that spun off as a stand-alone company in February 2022. The average ComEd customer can expect to receive about $13 per month in carbon credits on their electric bills over the first five months of 2026, the utility said.
ComEd is also launching a low-income discount program in January designed to reduce monthly bills to 3% to 6% of household income for qualified applicants.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
