Editorial: Soaring ComEd bills have us all on edge. Springfield must confront our electricity woes head-on.

Chicago Tribune

2 days ago

The politics of energy in Illinois are hot this summer. And they're only going to get hotter.
Residents throughout the Chicago area only now are opening their electric bills and seeing the effect of our sweltering June, combined with substantially higher electricity rates, on their household budgets. With inflation top of mind for everyone, you can add the cost of keeping the lights on and the air conditioners humming to food, insurance, housing, health care and more items making it harder for ordinary folks simply to pay their bills every month.
A spike in the cost of energy that took effect June 1 along with higher usage in one of the hottest Junes Chicago has experienced resulted in a $67.28 increase in the average June 30 household electric bill, according to Commonwealth Edison. So far, July has been no picnic either in terms of heat and humidity, so next month's bills aren't likely to provide relief.
And, adding to the electric-bill angst, there was news Tuesday that next summer's electric bills will see more upward pressure after the results of a power auction just completed by PJM Interconnection, the power-grid manager for a multistate territory running from northern Illinois east to the mid-Atlantic. The details of that auction are somewhat technical; PJM solicits bids from power generators and others for what the industry calls 'capacity' and what effectively are promises from those power-plant operators to produce energy during high-demand periods over a year. The amount paid to those selected operators for those promises comes from power consumers throughout the PJM region — that is, virtually all households and businesses — and is embedded in the overall price they pay utilities or other suppliers for energy.
Much of the reason for this summer's increase in ComEd rates is due to a spike in the current cost of capacity. That capacity cost will rise another 22% in the year beginning in June 2026 after PJM's latest auction. ComEd says that change by itself will hike ComEd rates another 2%, raising the average residential bill by $2.50 per month.
Politicians and environmental groups, among others, are castigating PJM for the increases and blaming the grid operator for being too sluggish in approving high-voltage connections of renewable power sources such as wind farms to population centers.
PJM, an organization that has operated largely in obscurity for many years despite its centrality to ensuring power is available when most needed, has become a convenient scapegoat for governors across the PJM footprint, including JB Pritzker and Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro.
But at least in Illinois, where Pritzker spearheaded the 2021 Climate & Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), the governor owns these electricity woes whether he likes it or not and whether it's entirely fair. He and fellow Democrats in Springfield (with some GOP backing) undertook a monumental reordering of the state's power industry, preserving existing nuclear plants through ratepayer subsidies and phasing out all carbon-emitting sources such as coal and natural gas no later than 2050. Environmentalists insisted that a large chunk of those gas-fired plants — which for years have been critical to meeting demand during intense heat waves — shutter by 2030.
CEJA in short was an audacious bid by a governor with presidential ambitions to boast the nation's most progressive clean-energy statute.
Now, CEJA's mandates appear overly inflexible in light of legitimate concerns about whether enough power will be available during heat waves and cold snaps, especially once more of the many planned data centers — intensely power-hungry facilities — are built in Illinois. PJM's capacity prices aren't soaring for no reason. When demand begins to outstrip supply, prices go up.
We warned in September that state policymakers seemed asleep at the switch in the face of a coming electricity crisis. If we're still not quite at a crisis point, we're considerably closer now than we were even nine months ago.
Environmental groups and others in the spring pushed for substantial new energy legislation meant in part to address the growing concerns over cost and reliability. No action was taken.
Speaking earlier this week at a climate conference in Chicago, Pritzker said, 'We've got legislation that's teed up. … When we get to the new legislature, I'm committed to getting this passed. It includes energy storage, it includes expanding the opportunity within solar and wind, and there are ways we can tweak the already really, really great CEJA bill.'
We will have more to say in the future on that bill, which likely will further increase costs for ratepayers in order to incentivize favored energy technologies. If by 'tweaking' CEJA, the governor means making the existing law more flexible in order to confront the growing challenge of reliably furnishing reasonably priced power, we're glad.
We're not sure that what he means, though, given that his closest and most influential allies on energy matters — environmental groups — are staunchly opposed to any changes that could be perceived as 'backsliding' on CEJA's mandates. We'll see when debate begins in earnest.
Here's another warning for Springfield: The growing public dismay over power bills should be a sign to policymakers that now is not the time for litmus tests and winning plaudits from activists. It's a time for hardheaded pragmatism. Nothing will erode public support for groundbreaking clean-energy policies faster than rolling blackouts and punishing electric bills.