* Tribune…

The first ComEd bills with a massive baked-in supply rate increase are hitting home for Chicago-area customers, and after a record heat wave in June, they may be in for some sticker shock.

The spike in the wholesale cost of electricity, which ComEd buys at an annual auction and then passes through to its customers, paired with increased energy usage, added $67.28 month-over-month to the average June 30 bill, the utility said.

Some ComEd customers saw a triple-digit increase in their total June bills, the utility said.

“It’s a double whammy when you think about capacity price auctions and a very hot, unusually hot June,” Brad Perkins, ComEd’s director of rates and revenue policy, told the Tribune.

And it’s gonna get even worse next year.

* Clean Grid Alliance…

Illinois electric consumers opening their latest utility bills were shocked to discover a massive price spike (20-25%), due to the results of the last PJM Capacity Auction (2025-2026). Today, PJM released the results of next year’s auction for 2026-27. At $329.17/MW Day, the results were 22% higher than last year. It is now clear that substantially higher electric rates are here to stay unless policymakers act.

The 2026/2027 PJM Capacity Auction results, released today, showed a record-setting price of $329.17/MW day. For the average homeowner, this will mean a substantial increase starting in June 2026 on top of the 20-25% price hike they just experienced. These increases are largely the result of rapidly increasing demand to keep up with explosive data center growth.

“Today’s capacity auction results yet again demonstrate that the ComEd zone needs more capacity to satisfy growing demand for power. The fastest and cheapest way to get this additional capacity for customers is to build battery energy storage projects and build them now. The Illinois legislature is long overdue to pass legislation that instructs the Illinois Power Agency to procure low-cost battery storage projects to save ratepayers money,” said Jeff Danielson, Vice President of Advocacy at the Clean Grid Alliance.

“Experts have determined that 6 gigawatts of storage would save ALL ratepayers billions of dollars a year in direct energy costs and PJM capacity costs. Doing nothing will have a direct impact on ComEd customers – resulting in higher bills and a less reliable electric grid. The energy crisis is happening now, not at some future date. It is time for Illinois’ political leaders to lead on behalf of their constituents.”

Studies by the Power Bureau and the IPA have found that adding battery storage to the PJM grid in Illinois can help address this demand crisis and over time can lower prices.

* Citizens Utility Board…

While we are relieved that the negotiated price cap prevented capacity costs from soaring even higher, this price spike is unacceptable. CUB is deeply concerned that ComEd customers will continue to bear painfully high costs for another year, largely because of policy shortcomings from PJM. The power grid operator’s policy decisions too often favor outdated, expensive power plants and needlessly block low-cost clean energy resources and battery projects from connecting to the grid and bringing down prices. This extended price spike was preventable. It ramps up the urgency of implementing long-term reforms at PJM and comprehensive energy legislation in Illinois, such as the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, to protect customers from price spikes that serve only to give power generators windfall profits. -CUB Executive Director Sarah Moskowitz

Background:

● On Tuesday, July 22, PJM Interconnection, the ”Regional Transmission Organization” (power grid operator) for 67 million customers across all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia (including Commonwealth Edison’s 4.2 million customers), announced the results of an auction to determine the price consumers will pay for reserve power, or “capacity.”
● The auction (technically referred to as the “Base Residual Auction”) was held July 9-15. It set a capacity price of $329.17 per Megawatt-day from June 1, 2026 through May 31, 2027. The capacity cost hit a cap negotiated by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and is about 22 percent higher than the price that was set last year for ComEd territory and about 11 times higher than what the price was two years ago.
● Capacity costs are payments consumers make to power generators–the companies that own power plants–and they are a component of the supply price ComEd customers pay. ComEd has not yet announced what the supply price will be in June of 2026.
● The 2024 capacity auction set a price of about $269.92 per MW-day, about 830 percent higher than the $28.92 per MW-day capacity price set in the auction the year before. The prices in the 2024 auction 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).
● Following the price spike in the last auction, consumer and environmental advocates pushed for several changes that had an impact on the results of this latest auction:
○ RMR reform: Environmental advocates successfully pushed for changes in the way PJM handles Reliability Must Run (RMR) arrangements. RMRs allow PJM to funnel extra consumer money to an otherwise retiring plant to keep it open past its closure date. Under previous PJM policy, the electric capacity of an RMR plant was NOT included in the capacity auction. Consumers thus ended up paying double: first for the price of the RMR contract, and then again because of the high capacity prices that result from not counting the RMR plant. For example, the Independent Market Monitor estimated that not including Brandon Shores and Wagner–two RMR fossil fuel plants near Baltimore, Maryland–in the last capacity auction increased the cost by as much as 40 percent. Changes made since the last auction mean that coal-fired units for the Brandon Shores plant and oil-fired units for the H.A. Wagner plant will be included in the latest capacity auction and the next one after that. (Note: PJM stakeholders are still developing a long-term solution. CUB opposes keeping expensive, outdated power plants open past their closure date–but agrees that RMRs should be included in the capacity auction, since they are operating anyway at ratepayer expense.)

○ More renewable, battery resources will participate in the auction. After the last auction, consumer advocates flagged that there was an existing source of supply that wasn’t necessarily being counted in the auction: renewable resources. PJM then removed an exemption that had previously left many renewable and energy storage facilities out of the capacity auction. For the first time, this required wind, solar and battery generations with Capacity Interconnection Rights (CIRs) to participate in the auction.

○ Capacity Price Collar: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, concerned about the impact future capacity auctions would have on consumers, filed a complaint at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asking for a price cap on the capacity auction until PJM’s interconnection queue delay was sorted out. He and PJM subsequently entered into negotiations and agreed to a $329.17 per MW-day cap on capacity prices for the next two auctions. Unfortunately, PJM, while consulting with select unnamed generators, successfully pushed for a first-ever floor of $177.24 per MW-day on the capacity price. In filings with FERC, CUB has expressed deep concern about the floor, and joined other watchdogs in questioning why no consumer advocates were at the negotiating table.

* Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition…

Today, grid operator PJM announced results in its capacity auction that threaten to send electricity rates soaring for consumers in the ComEd region in Illinois. The overall cost of capacity, which PJM procures to ensure adequate resources to meet energy needs, jumped from $269.92 to $329.17. The Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition released the following statement:

“The results of PJM’s capacity market auction are sobering, particularly when Illinois ratepayers are already facing skyrocketing energy bills. As Big Tech’s energy-hungry data centers sap up more and more power and President Trump’s Big Terrible Bill rolls back clean energy tax incentives that could save families hundreds, it is clear we need immediate action to protect Illinois consumers. While grid operators like PJM and MISO are slow to connect cost-effective clean energy to the grid and help meet growing demand, the Trump Administration is moving fast to bail out the fossil fuel industry at ratepayers’ expense. As new federal policies make our power dirtier and more expensive, it is crucial that Illinois lawmakers can step up to the plate this fall and pass the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability (CRGA) Act to protect families from utility bill spikes, preserve and grow our clean energy workforce, and maintain our national leadership on climate action.”

* Gov. Pritzker said this week that he was committed to passing an energy bill next spring…

We’ve got legislation that’s teed up - didn’t quite get it done in the legislature this last spring, but coming into the new legislature - where I am committed to getting this passed. And it includes energy storage, it includes expanding the opportunity within solar and wind.