When Joseph Guice received a call from a collections agency for an outstanding ComEd bill of $1,583, he knew something was wrong. “I was shocked to see the bill,” Guice said. “Nobody told me that I owed anything.” Before the 87-year-old retired barber moved to a senior home on Chicago’s South…...
Cycle and save
Those hot summer days can be brutal on your electricity bills. One way to fight the summer-bill-blues is to take advantage of your utility’s energy efficiency incentives. Case in point: ComEd’s Smart Ideas® Central Air Conditioning Cycling. ComEd will credit you $5 or $10 off your monthly electric bill between June…...
Polar vortex price spike? Read all about it!
At about the same time the “polar vortex” slammed Illinois with record cold this month—it also generated some heat from consumers who complained to CUB about an unheard of spike in electricity prices. That’s right, electricity prices. About eight out of 10 Illinois homes heat with natural gas—so what business…...
It’s a new electricity market in Illinois
Even as consumers flocked to alternative electricity suppliers to take advantage of prices that were sometimes 50 percent lower than the traditional utilities, CUB warned that this was just the honeymoon phase for the state’s power market. Now it appears that the honeymoon is over. Crain’s Chicago Business reports that…...
The quest for a smarter power grid begins today
Today, Illinois’ biggest electric utility will begin installing digital “smart meters” in Chicago’s western suburbs, launching an ambitious plan to give 4 million customers new meters by 2021. These new meters, built in a plant on the city’s South side, are a symbol of high-tech upgrades, collectively called the “smart grid,”…...
Win up to $900 of free electricity!
Presence Health is partnering with CUB in a contest encouraging Illinois consumers to go green and lower their utility bills. Here’s how it works: Community members and Presence Health employees can sign up for CUB Energy Saver—that’s CUB’s free bill-cutting service—as a member of any hospital’s energy-saving team. At the end of summer,…...
