Income-based discount to be available as early as 2025, pending regulatory approval
CHICAGO (March 12, 2024) – ComEd yesterday presented a proposal to the Illinois
Commerce Commission (ICC) outlining a new Low-Income Discount (LID) program to
help income-eligible customers manage their energy bills. The proposed program would
enable qualifying customers to receive a percentage-based discount on their monthly
electric bill determined by income level. Those with household incomes less than or
equal to 50% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) will receive the greatest discount.
However, customers with household incomes up to 300% of the FPL will be still eligible
for a discount. ComEd hopes to begin providing discount credits in 2025, pending final
approval from the Commission.
“ComEd’s newly proposed low-income discount program builds upon our longstanding
commitment to keep bills affordable for all customers,” said Gil Quiniones, President
and CEO, ComEd. “Electricity is an essential service, and LID will provide a measure of
security for households dealing with financial challenges.”
ComEd’s LID aims to ensure residential customers’ energy expense does not exceed
more than 3% of household income (or 6% for electric space heat customers). The
program will also promote opportunities for low-income households to participate in the
ComEd Energy Efficiency Program, which helps customers manage energy use to save
money on future energy bills. Since 2008, the award-winning program has helped
hundreds of thousands of customers save a total of $9 billion on their energy bills, as
well as a total of 82 million megawatt-hours of electricity, which is enough energy to
power more than 9.5 million ComEd customers’ homes for one year.
Should ComEd’s proposal be approved by the ICC, applications to participate will be
available in mid-2025. To make it easy for customers to apply and participate, ComEd
proposes to leverage existing relationships with local administrative agencies. Those
enrollment pathways include:
• Auto Enrollment: ComEd will automatically enroll in LID those customers who have
been enrolled in other income-qualified programs within 12-months from date of
implementation. Examples of income-qualified programs include Low-Income
Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), Percentage of Income Payment Plan. (PIPP), Supplemental Arrearage Reduction Program (SARP), and Give-A-
Ray, or customers who qualify for past due payment charge and deposit waivers.
• Local Administrative Agencies (LAAs): When applying for LIHEAP or PIPP
assistance with LAAs, customers will be able to concurrently apply for ComEd’s
LID program.
The LID program will build upon ComEd’s long history of efforts to expand the options
for customers, particularly income-eligible customers, to manage energy bills. Efforts to
support families and individuals include bill-assistance options, energy-management
programs tailored for income-eligible customers, along with electric vehicle charger and
installation rebates reserved for equity-eligible communities.
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ComEd is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation (NASDAQ: EXC), a Fortune 250 energy
company with approximately 10 million electricity and natural gas customers in the U.S. ComEd
powers the lives of more than 4 million customers across northern Illinois, or 70 percent of the
state's population. For more information visit ComEd.com, and connect with the company
on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and YouTube.
