The state legislature passed a bill that will add a surcharge for customers in the short term, but should pay it back more than 10-fold over the next 20 years.
Electricity prices have been rising across much of the country, and Illinois is among the states seeing the sharpest increases. Over the past five years, prices have shot up by about a third on average across the state, and some regions have seen increases of nearly 50 percent. According to the Illinois Commerce Commission, more than 170,000 disconnection notices were mailed out in June alone — that’s up from approximately 46,000 for the same time last year.
In response to the skyrocketing utility bills, Illinois lawmakers passed a sweeping energy reform package last week. The Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, or CRGA, is expected to flood the grid with more power and bets big on battery storage. In a landmark shift, lawmakers also lifted the state’s nearly four-decade-old moratorium on the construction of new large-scale nuclear reactors in Illinois. The state legislature passed a law two years ago making an exception for small modular reactors. Nuclear power already provides more than 50 percent of the state’s energy mix. The state currently relies on a mix of fossil fuels and renewables for the rest of its energy, with solar and wind making up roughly 13 percent of the state’s energy supply.
“It’s an incredibly exciting investment in climate progress,” Jen Walling with the Illinois Environmental Coalition said, adding that the bill does far more than fund batteries. It also dedicates funding for home energy efficiency programs, geothermal energy, and thermal energy network pilots, and helps expand electric vehicle charging stations. The new legislation also includes new authorities for the state’s utility regulator, the Illinois Commerce Commission, to make long-term plans about the state’s electrical supply.
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