Chicago business electricity: ComEd and choice

What choice covers in ComEd territory, and who certifies the seller

The Illinois Commerce Commission states the position without hedging: electric consumers in the Ameren Illinois, ComEd and MidAmerican service territories may choose who provides the supply portion of their service, and that supply may be sold by the utility or by an Alternative Retail Electric Supplier. A Chicago address sits inside the second of those three territories, so the question is never whether choice exists at the address — it is which seller has been certified to sell there and on what terms. Certification is not registration. A supplier applies to the Commission for a certificate of service authority under 220 ILCS 5/16-115, the application is verified, it identifies the territory and the services to be offered, and the Commission may grant the certificate for the whole state or for a specified geographic area — which is why a supplier licensed in Illinois is not automatically licensed everywhere in it. The obligations do not stop at enrolment: the Commission's own authority page lists an annual compliance certification due no later than 30 April, a licence or permit bond, an annual call-centre information report, occurrence-based filings for the standard customer contract and complaint procedures, and a designated-agent report whenever that agent changes.

• The Commission — not the supplier and not the city — decides who may sell supply to a Chicago account.
• A certificate of service authority may be scoped to a specified geographic area rather than the whole state.
• Certified suppliers file an annual compliance certification due by 30 April, plus a bond and periodic reports.
• Choice covers the supply portion of the bill. It does not change who owns the wires.

The city's aggregation programme, and which businesses it actually reaches

Chicago is one of the Illinois municipalities whose residents and small businesses are supplied through a municipal aggregation programme. The Illinois Power Agency describes the mechanism: a municipality or county may buy electricity on behalf of residents and small businesses in its community, and those customers may opt out of the municipal offer. The eligible class is the point that decides most commercial enquiries. Aggregation is written for residents and small commercial retail customers, so a business large enough to be buying supply on its own usage, and certainly one with a demand-metered service class, is generally not inside the programme — and if it has been inside it, the supplier was chosen by the municipality through a procurement, not by the business. The practical check is written down in two places: the aggregation list the Commission publishes on its consumer education site, and the account's own service class. If the account is on ComEd default supply, one of three things happened — it was never in the eligible class, it opted out, or it returned to the utility after a contract ended. Knowing which one is worth establishing before a renewal conversation, because it changes who the incumbent counterparty is.

• Aggregation is an opt-out programme for residents and small commercial retail customers.
• The supplier under an aggregation programme was selected by the municipality, not by the individual business.
• The list of participating communities sits on the Commission's consumer education site.
• An account on ComEd default supply is either outside the class, opted out, or back in after a contract ended.

The ComEd bill that stays behind

Buying supply elsewhere changes one line, and a business that expects a smaller bill rather than a differently sourced one tends to be disappointed on the first invoice. Delivery and distribution remain with ComEd under its regulated tariff, transmission and the tariff's riders and surcharges remain with ComEd, metering stays with the utility, and taxes are unaffected. What changes is who supplies the kilowatt-hours and, sometimes, who presents the bill — an offer can be supply-only, leaving two invoices, or consolidated, so the supplier bills the utility's delivery charges alongside its own supply. The Commission publishes a check the reader can run unaided: each electric utility files a monthly report showing how its customers are supplied — hourly supply, fixed-price supply from the utility, or supply from a retail supplier — with customer counts and associated usage, and for the non-residential classes, finer breakdowns. Reading that report for your own service class tells you how many comparable accounts in the same territory have already moved, which is market information rather than an advertised claim. A second Commission file is worth knowing about: every utility and every retail supplier must send a quarterly environmental disclosure as a bill insert showing the fuel sources behind the power and the emissions attributable to them, and must file the same information with the Commission.

• Delivery, transmission, riders, metering and taxes remain with ComEd under its tariff.
• Supply-only and consolidated billing are different products with different invoice traffic.
• The Commission's monthly switching reports show supply choice by utility and customer class.
• The quarterly environmental disclosure insert is a requirement, and it is filed with the Commission too.

Chicago's own building rules, which a supply contract does not switch off

Chicago carries a compliance layer that other choice markets do not: the Building Energy Use Benchmarking Ordinance and the Chicago Energy Rating System. The city adopted the benchmarking ordinance in 2013; the rating system followed in 2019, and it exists to make the data already being reported more visible. Buildings required to benchmark — most properties of 50,000 square feet or larger in the city — report energy use to the city once a year, and the reporting deadline is 1 June. Ratings are assigned annually after that deadline: four stars is the highest energy performance, one star is a poor performer, and a property that has not submitted the required information receives zero out of four stars. The rating reaches the street through a placard mailed to each building, which must be posted in a prominent location and shared when the property is listed for sale or lease. The obligation follows the building, not the supply contract: a tenant that buys its own power, or a landlord whose tenants buy separately, still has to assemble whole-building data, because the ordinance asks for total energy use rather than for the utility account. The city publishes the covered-buildings list as open data, so whether a particular address is in scope is a lookup rather than an opinion, and improvement is not mandated — the city does not require a building to reach a given rating. Read together, these rules make procurement and compliance two separate workstreams: the supplier decision is about price structure and contract terms, and the building decision is about data, verification and disclosure.

• Benchmarking ordinance adopted 2013; the Energy Rating System was implemented in 2019.
• Covered buildings — generally 50,000 square feet or larger — report annually, with a 1 June deadline.
• Non-compliance produces zero stars; the city does not require a building to hit a particular rating.
• The placard must be posted prominently and shared when the building is listed for sale or lease.
• Coverage follows the building, so buying supply separately does not remove the reporting duty.

Where price risk sits for a Chicago account

Two Illinois addresses in different utility territories are priced against different wholesale markets. ComEd's northern territory, including Chicago, operates inside PJM Interconnection; Ameren Illinois, which covers central and southern Illinois, sits in MISO. The commodity is the same, but the capacity and congestion costs folded into a retail supply offer are set in different markets with different auction designs and delivery-year calendars, so a Chicago quote and a Peoria quote are not two samples of one market. That is why the useful comparison is not between two advertised offers but between a supplier's price and the risk the contract places on the buyer. A fixed product transfers the wholesale outcome to the supplier for the term; an indexed product keeps it with the business, and on a demand-metered account the exposure is not only to energy but to the coincident peak that sets capacity-related cost. The Commission's monthly switching statistics and the filed environmental disclosures are the two public documents that speak to this without a supplier's framing: one shows how comparable accounts are actually supplied, the other shows what fuel mix a supplier is reporting behind its product. Neither tells you what to pay. They tell you who is in the market and what is being sold.

• ComEd territory is in PJM; Ameren Illinois is in MISO, so capacity and congestion costs differ by territory.
• Fixed and indexed products place wholesale risk on different parties for the length of the term.
• On a demand-metered account, capacity-related cost follows the peak, not only the volume.
• Switching statistics and filed disclosures are public Commission records, not supplier marketing.

What to send before asking for a Chicago quote

A Chicago account is quote-ready when the paperwork answers questions rather than raising them. Start with twelve months of ComEd bills showing delivery and supply separately, because that history is what shows the load shape a supplier is being asked to underwrite; a single month, or a bill with the supply and delivery lines merged by a consolidated invoice, hides exactly the detail that decides the offer. Add the service class and the meter type, and interval data for a demand-metered site. Then the commercial facts: whether the premises is inside the city's aggregation programme, whether the building is in the benchmarking ordinance's scope and what its rating has been, the lease terms if the business does not own the building, and the notice date on any contract already running. That last item is the one that most often decides the outcome, because the notice deadline moves faster than the procurement does. One structural caveat applies to every energy page on this site, and it applies with particular force in a city whose neighbouring municipalities run their own programmes: competitive supply depends on the service address, the meter and the utility territory, and municipal utilities, cooperatives and some jurisdictions have no choice at all. HighGround may receive compensation from providers on completed purchases. An enquiry places no order and switches no supplier — nothing moves until you sign, and the supplier you are on today keeps serving the account until a switch is actually completed.

• Twelve months of ComEd bills, with delivery and supply separated.
• Service class, meter type, and interval data for demand-metered sites.
• Aggregation status, benchmarking status, lease terms, and the notice date on the current contract.
• Eligibility for competitive supply is decided by the address, the meter and the utility territory.
• HighGround may be compensated on completed purchases; an enquiry orders nothing and switches nothing.

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