ComEd filed for a $234.3 million rate reconciliation Friday, seeking to recover cost overruns incurred in 2025 related to connecting data centers and other new businesses, as well as electrification efforts such as building out EV charging infrastructure. But on the brighter side, electricity delivery charges will actually go down in 2027 compared to this year.
If approved, the cost reconciliation would add $2.97 per month to the distribution charges on the average residential customer bill beginning in January 2027. The Illinois Commerce Commission is expected to render a decision in December.
However, the 2025 cost reconciliation will be partially offset by a $128 million revenue adjustment filed by ComEd in March. The utility “overcollected” from customers last year based on a projected load that was higher than the actual usage, according to Jason Decker, vice president of regulatory policy at ComEd. If the 2025 revenue reconciliation is approved by the ICC, ComEd will issue a $0.56 monthly credit embedded in the delivery charges on the average residential customer bill next year, he said.
The net result: the combined reconciliation of actual costs and revenues for 2025 will add $2.41 per month to the average ComEd customer bill in 2027, which is $1.22 per month less than the adjustment added to this year’s bills. That means delivery charges should go down for most customers beginning in January.
“Reconciliation proceedings are a valuable means for ensuring that electricity rates are reasonable and aligned with prudently incurred costs,” Gil Quiniones, president and CEO of ComEd, said in a statement. “Sometimes this process leads to a credit for customers and sometimes it results in a charge, but it always reflects our commitment to transparency, efficiency and delivering value to the communities we serve.”
Last year, the ICC sliced $25.4 million from ComEd’s $268.5 million rate reconciliation request to recover extra capital expenses the utility said it incurred above its projected budget in 2024. The approved $243 million adjustment is adding about $3.10 per month to the average residential bill this year.
In addition, last year’s revenue reconciliation for 2024 added another $0.53 per month to the average bill, bringing the total reconciliation cost to $3.63 per month being paid by the average ComEd customer this year.
While ComEd is touting the 2025 reconciliation request as a decrease over the amount being paid by customers this year, it still represents an increase over the delivery charges previously approved by the ICC. State regulators will have the better part of a year to analyze the 2025 cost reconciliation sought by ComEd before ruling in December.
ComEd customers are already dealing with higher delivery charges after the ICC approved a four-year, $606 million rate hike in 2024 as part of the utility’s power grid improvement plan, increasing average residential customer bills by $1.84 per month through 2027.
In January, ComEd filed a new $15.3 billion, four-year grid plan with the ICC to meet projected increased electricity demand among its 4.1 million customers across northern Illinois. While ComEd will not file a rate request reflecting the grid plan until next year, it is projected to increase residential customer delivery charges by about $3 per month starting in 2028, the utility said.
With data centers driving up the cost of electricity, the ICC recently approved a tariff proposal by ComEd requiring increased deposits from developers to protect ratepayers against multimillion-dollar projects that don’t come to full fruition. The ICC’s tariff decision also opened up an investigation into how ComEd can serve the increasing number of large-load customers without shifting the cost burden onto existing customers.
ComEd said in its tariff proposal it has experienced “an unprecedented surge” in applications from new customers with exceptionally large service requests. There are currently about 100 large-load projects in the developmental pipeline, most of which are for data centers, the utility told the Tribune.
In addition to increased delivery charges, ComEd customers have seen supply charges — the cost of electricity — skyrocket over the past year, in large part due to increased demand from the proliferation of power-hungry data centers.
PJM Interconnection manages the electricity supply grid for 13 states, including ComEd’s 4.2 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 in December, setting the capacity price at a record $333.44 per megawatt-day beginning in June 2027.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
