CUB General Counsel Eric DeBellis
CUB’s expert testimony has uncovered more than $1 billion in questionable spending in Commonwealth Edison’s proposed four-year plan for improving its power grid.
(Sign CUB’s petition urging the ICC to hold ComEd accountable.)
The consumer group said it was disappointed to see ComEd propose another bloated, expensive grid plan–even after its first plan, proposed in 2023, was rejected by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC).
“The ICC was clear last time around that they rejected ComEd’s grid plan in large part because it was too expensive,” CUB General Counsel Eric DeBellis said. “We know the grid requires certain updates over time, but ComEd has a responsibility to maintain its grid in a way that benefits customers and doesn’t bankrupt them. Many customers are struggling with rising costs, and ComEd is trying to pad its profit margins with unwarranted upgrades based on inflated forecasts of needs and premature replacements of good equipment we’re still paying off. We urge state regulators to protect customers and hold ComEd accountable.”
In January, ComEd, filed a $15.3 billion, four-year plan for upgrading its local distribution system (ICC Docket 26-0047). The plan, which would cover 2028 through 2031, proposes about $9.5 billion of investment in new infrastructure as well as about $5.7 billion in spending for operations and maintenance. Once the grid plans are approved, ComEd will propose to the ICC a four-year rate plan to pay for the grid work over time.
These cases are important, because under regulatory law, utilities earn a return on their capital investments–and they always try to propose bloated plans to increase their profits. The Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), landmark energy legislation passed in 2021, holds ComEd more accountable by requiring that the utility prove that its grid plan incorporates the state’s clean energy goals and at the same time is affordable and beneficial to customers.
In 2023 the ICC rejected the utility’s first proposed grid plan for, among other things, failing to prove affordability. ComEd’s second plan was approved after consumer advocates helped cut the utility’s $2 billion in proposed spending by about 25 percent.
ComEd’s new grid plan represents a 21 percent increase in spending over its current plan. In June, CUB filed expert testimony from Brubaker & Associates, Mission:Data, and Current Energy Group, that in total called for cutting more than $1 billion in wasteful or questionable spending. Some highlights from the testimony:
- CUB found that ComEd’s proposal to recover $405 million in data center-related grid upgrades from other customers is unjust and unreasonable. The watchdog argued that the ICC shouldn’t OK recovery of these costs until ComEd adopts a system of deposits and other financial guarantees that fully allocates these costs to the data centers causing those costs. (In a separate case that CUB is participating in, ComEd and other parties, including CUB, have proposed different versions of such a system.) Also, ComEd likely overstated the amount of electric capacity expansion needed, because it is based on bad information from data center companies that suffer no penalty for speculating or even outright lying. In another piece of testimony, CUB called out ComEd for wanting customers to pay for millions of dollars in upgrades to serve a proposed data center, even though the company behind the project hadn’t made necessary financial commitments. In response, ComEd admitted that the project has since been cancelled by the developer.
- ComEd overstated, by about $238 million, the investments it would need to have adequate electricity service when demand skyrockets in the summer. For one, ComEd failed to consider more cost-effective non-wires alternatives to protect the electricity distribution system from being overburdened, such as programs that use energy efficiency and battery storage to better manage peak electricity demand and grid-enhancing technologies that use software to help make the system more efficient. Instead, the only solution ComEd proposed was “increase budget by 10 percent,” CUB argued.
- ComEd proposed that customers cover $209.4 million to begin replacing all smart meters with new versions–a job that would last from 2028 to 2041. CUB pushed back on this proposal, because it would involve replacing a significant number of perfectly good meters that are not considered old–and have not even been paid off yet. CUB also questioned ComEd’s procurement process, as the Company has not conducted competitive bidding or the preliminary testing and other preparations necessary to scope and properly price the project. CUB further took issue with ComEd’s lack of firm commitments that customers will have real-time access to the data their own meters generate in a useful format. Without this access, and the freedom to integrate that data with any third party applications the customer chooses, most of the purported customer benefits of smart meters will not actually be available.
- ComEd inflated by $124 million the investments needed for increased electric vehicle (EV) charging in its service territory. ComEd did nothing to incorporate strategies to better manage EV charging (such as programs that encourage charging at night), and simply proposed investments it would need to, implausibly, serve all load at once. For example, ComEd overstated the impact of electric school buses on peak electricity load, even though that peak always happens in the summer when school is not in session.
- CUB identified at least $96 million in capital projects–plus about $18 million in associated operations and maintenance expenses–that ComEd labeled as “mandatory,” even though they clearly were discretionary. ComEd hid these expenses in the mandatory category to skirt the CEJA mandate of having to prove that the benefits of discretionary spending outweigh the costs. (Even though the ICC criticized ComEd’s first grid plan for declaring 72 percent of its proposed new capital spending as “mandatory,” the new plan does even worse, with 75 percent labelled as such.)
- ComEd proposes a jump in its spending for replacing wood poles that are old or degraded–even though in recent years the utility has only completed a fraction of the work they forecasted for this category. (In 2024, for example, ComEd only completed about a quarter of what they forecasted.) CUB proposes to adjust this budget down to reflect a more realistic rate of pole replacement (their 2023-25 average plus a 2.5 percent per year inflation adjustment). That would reduce spending by $84.8 million.
- ComEd wants a slush fund for exploratory pilots that it hasn’t identified with any specificity. CUB says the ICC should say no, cutting spending by about $44 million in capital expenses and another $12 million in operations and management spending.
ICC judges will issue a proposed order in the case in October. A final order is due around November/December. This case will decide the grid plan only. How ComEd charges customers for the upgrades will be decided in a multi-year rate plan case in 2027.
