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A record price spike in an electricity “capacity auction” has caused Commonwealth Edison’s electricity price to\u00a0 increase significantly from June 2025 through May 2026. ComEd estimates this could cost customers an extra $10.60 per month, on average, over 12 months. <\/span>Read CUB’s Q&A below and visit CUBHelpCenter.com<\/strong><\/a> for more information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What happened?<\/strong> In that auction, covering the 12-month period from June 2025 through May 2026, prices for most of PJM jumped about 830 percent, from $28.92 per Megawatt-day in last year\u2019s auction to a record $269.92 per MW-day. The prices were even higher in two eastern sections of PJM: The Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) zone in Maryland ($466.35 per MW-day) and in the Dominion zone in Virginia and North Carolina ($444.26 per MW-day).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n [<\/span>Update:\u00a0 <\/strong>Since this blog was written, another capacity auction has been held to determine the capacity cost for 2026-2027. Unfortunately, the auction produced\u00a0 another record-high price: $329.17 per MW-day. Read CUB’s statement <\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span>\u00a0and our new WatchBlog article on what happened<\/strong><\/a>.]<\/p>\n What exactly are capacity costs?<\/strong> Normally, PJM holds annual auctions to secure capacity prices three years in advance. But PJM got off schedule years ago and July’s auction set the capacity price for the following June, only 11 months in advance.\u00a0 This compressed auction schedule has contributed to PJM’s problems. <\/span><\/p>\n Where does a capacity price increase appear on my bill?<\/strong> How much has an increase in capacity costs increased ComEd bills?<\/strong> How is the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) providing some relief for ComEd customers? Note:<\/strong> Solar<\/span> customers who participate in net metering won’t get this credit on their bills. According to ComEd, the \u201ccredit or charge for net metering customers is the reverse of what it is for other customers.\u201d So, if standard customers receive a credit, net metering customers receive a charge, and vice-versa. This has to do with the fact that solar<\/span> customers are generating their own power.\u00a0 Solar<\/span>\u00a0is an excellent deal, especially at times like this. We never like to see a charge added to bills, but even with the charge, homes with\u00a0solar<\/span>\u00a0panels should enjoy net savings during high-priced times like this.<\/p>\n So who’s making money off the price spike?<\/strong> ComEd is not making money off this price spike. The regulated utility passes supply costs\u2013including capacity payments\u2013onto consumers with no markup.\u00a0 (Note:<\/strong> ComEd does make money off another part of the bill–the delivery charges–and CUB challenges those increases before the Illinois Commerce Commission [ICC]. However, this supply price spike has nothing to do with ComEd’s delivery rate hikes.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Why did this happen? Poor PJM Policy:<\/strong> The grid operator has been slow in implementing long-term reforms to build cost-effective transmission and more efficiently connect clean energy generators to the grid. PJM has<\/span>\u00a0one of the nation\u2019s slowest “interconnection queues”<\/a><\/strong> — the waitlist for new power plants seeking review and approval by PJM so they can provide electricity and help bring down prices.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there are more renewable resources waiting in line than all of the resources currently powering PJM\u2019s vast 13-state region. Some projects have waited so long for PJM review (5 or more years) that they have lost financing or site permissions and will never get built.<\/p>\n Poor Market Rules: <\/strong>PJM’s Market Monitoring Unit (MMU)<\/a><\/strong>, an independent watchdog to prevent market manipulation, has said the capacity auction results “were significantly affected by flawed market design decisions.\u201d For example, RMRs, or Reliability Must Run arrangements<\/a><\/strong>, were a major contributor\u00a0to the high prices. RMRs allow PJM to keep a retiring plant in operation longer if it’s concerned the closure would hurt reliability. Here’s the problem: While RMR contracts give an outdated power plant extra money to stay open, PJM doesn\u2019t count them in the capacity market. So consumers pay double for an RMR: first for the price of the contract, and then again due to the high capacity prices that result from not counting the plant. This RMR policy increased capacity prices by more than 40 percent, the MMU said.<\/p>\n (Another contributor: New market rules limit <\/span>how much supply they take from plants that have suffered outages during extreme weather–<\/span>such as unreliable gas plants<\/a><\/strong>. In 2023, PJM delayed the capacity auction to implement these new rules after Winter Storm Elliott caused a large number of plant outages–about 90 percent of them from gas and coal plants<\/span>.)<\/p>\n Poor Load Forecasting:\u00a0<\/strong> No doubt, energy-guzzling data centers are straining the electric grid, but PJM needs to better manage this challenge. For example, the grid operator uses “load forecasts” to project future demand and determine how much electricity we need to buy in the capacity market. But PJM allows utilities to use wildly different approaches to determining their load forecast, and that can drive up prices for consumers. Too often a proposed data center is included in the load forecast even if it has little chance of actually being built.<\/p>\n For a more detailed explanation of the root causes, read CUB’s blog: PJM broke the capacity auction\u2013but here\u2019s how they can fix it.<\/strong><\/a> Concerned about high bills and other consequences of bad PJM policy, CUB has launched its Consumers for A Better Grid campaign<\/a><\/strong> to push for reforms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What reforms should PJM implement to prevent future price spikes?<\/strong> Another key reform: Implement strong state policy. <\/strong>With PJM’s foot-dragging, Illinois must continue to take steps to strengthen the power grid and bring down prices.\u00a0 The Illinois General Assembly took a major step forward in 2025 by passing the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability (CRGA) Act<\/strong><\/a>, comprehensive energy legislation that, among other things, would cost-effectively expand energy efficiency programs and bring more battery storage to the grid to help reduce prices and strengthen reliability. But there’s a lot of work left to do to protect customers and hold data centers accountable for their own costs.<\/p>\n How can ComEd customers try to lessen the impact of the supply price increase?<\/strong>
\n<\/b>In 2024, <\/span>power grid operator PJM Interconnection announced<\/a><\/strong> the results of its capacity auction (technically referred to as the \u201cBase Residual Auction\u201d). This auction is how the grid operator secures reserve power in a vast region that stretches from the Midwest to the East Coast and includes ComEd’s territory in northern Illinois.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>Not only do you pay for the power you use now, but you also pay for power you could use in the future. <\/span>Capacity<\/a><\/strong> refers to extra payments consumers give power plant operators for the commitment to have enough reserve electricity available if demand suddenly spikes. (Think of a hot summer afternoon, when everyone blasts the AC.) <\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>An increase in capacity prices will affect the supply section of your ComEd bill. For most customers, capacity costs are buried in ComEd\u2019s per-kilowatt-hour (kWh) supply price\u2013it\u2019s one component of the price, typically accounting for roughly 20 percent of supply. (The exception is if you\u2019re a customer of ComEd’s Hourly Pricing program–which charges you a supply price that can change hourly. Hourly Pricing customers see capacity as a separate line item on bills.<\/strong><\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n
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\n<\/strong>The cost increase is expected to be partly offset by a credit created by Illinois’ landmark energy law, the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, or CEJA. The law required a line item on ComEd bills called the Carbon Free Energy Resource Adjustment (CFERA), which was designed to subsidize carbon-free energy produced by Illinois nuclear power plants. But under a provision pushed by consumer advocates, this adjustment becomes a bill credit when energy prices go above a certain level, such as during this spike. For example, that credit was roughly a penny per kWh in the summer of 2025. So the impact of the price spike would have been worse without the CEJA credit. (The Chicago Tribune recently editorialized<\/strong><\/a> that under this CEJA provision, ComEd customers have been credited a net of about $600 million since 2022, when it took effect.)<\/p>\n
\n<\/b>P<\/span>ower generators\u2013large corporations that own power plants, such as Constellation and Vistra, and sell power to utilities like ComEd–are making a killing. The online publication <\/span>Utility Dive reported<\/a><\/strong> that the\u00a0 auction\u2019s total cost to consumers jumped from $2.2 billion last year to $14.7 billion in the July 2024 capacity auction.\u00a0 On the day the results were announced, the Constellation and Vistra stock price jumped about 11 percent and 14.5 percent, respectively. Not only was the capacity expensive, but the majority of it was dirty: PJM reported that 48 percent of the capacity power was supplied by gas generation and 18 percent by coal. Wind and solar were only at 1 percent each.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.citizensutilityboard.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Rising-Bills-PJM-Infographic-2025_2500-800x450.png\")
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\n<\/strong>There are a number of reasons, including skyrocketing energy demand sparked by data centers. But CUB says<\/a><\/strong> the main driver of the price spike is inaction and poor policy by PJM, which relies too heavily on expensive, unreliable fossil fuels. A<\/span> summary of the root causes of the price spike:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>CUB calls on PJM to launch the following reforms:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n
\n<\/b>Some steps you can consider to lessen the impact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n