ComEd Gets Its Rate Hike

By Chuck Sudo in News on May 24, 2011 9:20PM

The Illinois Commerce Commission approved a rate hike request from ComEd worth $156 million today that will raise electricity rates in the area by 3 percent, or an average of $3.15 per household. Yay! Just as our ComEd bill appeared to be decreasing.

The ICC's unanimous decision was hotly contested by residents and the Citizens Utility Board. CUB Executive Director David Kolata released a statement after the decision saying that the ICC ignored evidence provided by them and state Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office that suggested that ComEd's rates should have been cut by $40 million.

The new rates will take effect June 1 and will be 7.6 percent more than the utility's current revenues. If there's a silver lining to the rate hike, the actual hike is half of what ComEd requested last year. The ICc rejected another request from ComEd to charge a fee for smart-grid improvements, but a bill could be introduced to the state House as early as tomorrow to bypass the ICC and start charging for smart-grid improvements, anyway.