ComEd Carbon Free Fee

July 03, 2023

ComEd customers will see a charge on the delivery portion of their ComEd invoices beginning with the June 2023 billing cycle. What was once a 3.087 cents per kWh credit is now a 1.241 cents per kWh charge. In total, ComEd customers will dish out nearly $100 million in the second year of a program that runs through 2027.

Why the change? In June 2023, ComEd begins to recoup costs associated with credits provided during previous billing cycles. In 2022, ComEd customers received payments when energy prices were high. These payments stem from the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) objective to preserve three nuclear generation resources that might otherwise be retired. The payments to customers appear as “Carbon-Free Energy Resource Adjustments” (CFRA).

ComEd maintains that the CFRA is based on market prices and there were no errors in calculations. Regardless, ComEd filed a tariff change in May, 2023 and it was approved by the Illinois Commerce Commission. As a result, CFRA has gone from a credit of 3.087 cents per kWh to a charge of 1.241 cents per kWh in the summer, and 0.807 cents per kWh in non-summer months.