What’s happened in the Illinois electric market and what it means for your business.

Overview
Retail competition in Illinois began in 1997 with the passage of legislation that required ComEd and the Ameren Utilities (Illinois Power, CIPS and CILCO) to reduce their rates and then cap them. The law set up a ten-year transition period for the utilities to collect all of their stranded costs and to prepare for full competition. The transition period ended on January 1, 2007, the rate caps were lifted and all supply for remaining customers of the utilities is now competitively procured through an auction process.


The Opportunities of Deregulation in Illinois
Electric choice in Illinois provides you with the opportunity to strategically manage, and possibly reduce, your business’ electricity budget. In short, the new market means you have more options.

Instead of continuing to have electricity supplied by ComEd or Ameren, your business is free to choose from a number of retail electricity providers. In turn, with a retail electricity provider your business can choose from a variety of different purchasing strategies. These may include fixed or variable price products, portfolio products that offer a mix of fixed and index-based pricing, multi-year contracts, and most importantly, more competitive rates. Regardless of whom you select as your electricity provider, ComEd or Ameren will still be responsible  for delivery and infrastructure related services.

To find out how competitive your rate would be with Strategic Energy, click on Get an Electricity Quote.


A History of Electric choice in Illinois
The Illinois Electric Service Customer Choice and Rate Relief Law of 1997 restructured the state’s electric utility industry and offers customers choices and competitive prices. The law provided a phased in approach to competition by lowering and capping rates immediately for residential customers. Large industrial customers could begin receiving their electric supply from competitive suppliers beginning in late 1999. The ability to use a competitive supplier was offered to other industrial and commercial customers over the next few years with all customers, including residential customers, able to use competitive suppliers beginning in 2002.

While customers have had the ability to purchase their supply competitively, many had not due to the imposition of stranded costs on shopping customers along with the capped prices offered by the utilities. These barriers have been removed as ComEd and Ameren now purchase all of their bundled customers’ generation supply through an auction
process. The power procured in this fashion started flowing to customers on January 2, 2007, signaling the end of the rate-capped era.

With the removal of the rate cap, generation supply costs for customers remaining on ComEd increased by up to 25%. Costs for Ameren’s customers have gone up by as much as 50%, and even more in some instances.

If you still have questions about what has transpired in the Illinois electric market, please ask us your questions directly and Get Straight Answers.