In an already-expensive year of spiking electricity supply prices, Commonwealth Edison and Ameren Illinois are pushing to increase another part of our power bills, delivery charges, by a total of $328 million.
The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) last year approved four-year rate plans for both ComEd and Ameren, but a provision in state law–which CUB opposes–allows the utilities to recover extra expenses in yearly “reconciliation” cases, if they go over-budget on capital expenditures. Consumer advocates can challenge the utilities’ proposals in these reconciliation cases before the ICC.
“We will always challenge wasteful spending by the utilities,” CUB Executive Director Sarah Moskowitz said. ”And, while consumer protections have improved, we support ending this reconciliation benefit for utilities. If ComEd and Ameren blow through their budgets in a given year, customers shouldn’t have to pay for it.”
Here’s the latest on those reconciliation cases.
ComEd (Docket 25-0383)
Background: ComEd received a $500 million rate hike in 2023–much smaller than what the company wanted–and the ICC ordered them to come up with a new four-year plan to make improvements to the grid. Eventually, ComEd won an additional $606 million rate hike, spread out through 2027. In its latest reconciliation case, the utility claims it went over budget by $268.5 million in 2024, and is entitled to recover that money from their customers.
CUB’s take: Consumer advocates have uncovered at least $125 million in wasteful spending in ComEd’s proposal. Below are examples of unreasonable ComEd spending that, CUB argues, customers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for:
- $9.3 million in spending to fix ComEd’s billing system, which still isn’t working correctly. ComEd broke it, CUB says, customers shouldn’t have to pay to fix it.
- $7.6 million to build out the grid in preparation for a data center project that didn’t go online until the following year–and had less than half the energy demand than what ComEd had built out its system for. (This example speaks to why Illinois needs to have more protections in place for when utilities build and spend based on claims by data center developers that later turn out to be inaccurate.)
- A $5.8 million incentive payment ComEd says it deserves for hitting an affordability-metric target, set by the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), that aims to reduce disconnections in certain Zip Codes. CUB argues ComEd doesn’t deserve the money since the utility’s error-prone billing system prevented it from disconnecting customers for nonpayment for much of 2024. ComEd shouldn’t get to benefit from its failures.
- A $3.5 million incentive payment ComEd argues it deserves for hitting a CEJA performance-metric target for customer service. CUB argues there’s no justification for ComEd to get the money since, amid the billing-system problems, the utility lost the data necessary to prove its claimed improvement.
- $2.5 million in underexplained spending over their budget on operations and maintenance costs.
- $1.5 million to help resolve legal claims for injuries and property damage about which ComEd refused to provide specific information.
Ameren (Docket 25-0382)
Background: The ICC rejected Ameren’s four-year rate plan in 2023, awarding a fraction ($56 million) of what the utility wanted and ordering them to propose a new plan. Last year, the company got the ICC’s ok for a new plan: $308.6 million, spread out through 2027. Now, in its reconciliation case, Ameren wants to take another $59.6 million from consumers.
CUB’s take: Consumer advocates have uncovered at least $14 million in wasteful spending in Ameren’s reconciliation proposal. Below are examples of unreasonable spending that Ameren is attempting to foist on customers, CUB argues:
- $38,503 to cover failed equipment that Ameren knew about years ago and did not bother to account for in its planning–which included a project that needed this failed equipment.
- $62,928 to cover expensive outside contractors for work on a nearly $775,000 project that the utility had originally planned to handle internally. (Note: Ameren claims CUB should have to prove this spending was unnecessary, but that’s burden-shifting: The utility should have to explain why it was necessary to hire the outside workers.)
- $200,000 to cover an unexplained increase in meter-reading expenses. Given that most customers have new digital meters that can be remotely read–as opposed to old meters that require manual reading–these costs should be going down, not up.
- $10.8 million to cover certain expenses for retiree benefits that Ameren has repeatedly tried to foist on customers unsuccessfully in regulatory cases. But Ameren, apparently, hasn’t gotten the message and is once again trying to force its customers to foot the bill for this expense.
What’s next: In early November, CUB received the “proposed orders” in these cases–which are recommendations by regulatory judges on how the ICC should rule. The proposed orders backed about $9.8.million in reductions for Ameren and about $16.4 million for ComEd. The five-member Commission can follow the regulatory judges recommendations, or adjust them up or down, as they see fit. The final rulings for both cases are expected no later than Dec. 20, with rates taking effect shortly after.
What you can do: Sign our petitions to the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) urging regulators to say NO to wasteful spending in the ComEd and Ameren reconciliation cases.
