Jun 30, 2017   SOURCE: BusinessWire

Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA) Costs Expected to Fall Below Mandated Caps

ComEd filed today with the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) the first set of annually required reports detailing anticipated customer rate impacts of the Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA). As a part of FEJA, passed by the Illinois General Assembly and signed by Governor Rauner in 2016, impact caps are in place to protect customers from significant bill increases resulting from programs authorized through the Act.

As detailed in the reports, the cost impact of FEJA is currently projected to be well below the $0.25 monthly increase cap allowed for residential customers and the 1.3% increase cap for non-residential customers.

FEJA pivots Illinois to the new clean energy economy, saving and creating thousands of clean jobs and providing job training for the future workforce, while also creating significant consumer and environmental benefits. This comprehensive, bipartisan legislation jumpstarts renewables in Illinois, setting the stage to grow enough solar and wind energy to power one million homes. It also nearly doubles energy efficiency programs, creating more than $4 billion in consumer savings and reducing the CO2 equivalent to removing 18 million cars from the road. Further, the Act contains significant programs for low-income communities and extends ComEd’s customer assistance programs through 2021.

Each year, as FEJA programs are implemented, ComEd is required to file updated 10-year projections for the rolling average monthly impact to customer bills, and report on the prior year’s performance. Failure to meet keep customer impacts below the prescribed caps will result in mitigation efforts, as determined by the ICC.

“We are fortunate that our elected leaders had the vision to craft legislation that delivers such economic and environmental benefits to our customers while preserving competitive rates,” said Fidel Marquez, Senior Vice President Governmental and External Affairs, ComEd. “Today's filings demonstrate the care taken to ensure that the FEJA benefits will be achieved reasonably, with customer costs in mind.”

In a separate FEJA-related filing earlier this year, the ICC approved a bill reduction, which included the temporary removal of the energy efficiency charge, saving residential customers over $2.00 per month through the end of the year.

The decrease related to FEJA provisions that customers are projected to see builds on the historically low energy prices Illinois has seen in the past 20 years since electricity industry restructuring. Illinois residential electricity prices are 20 percent below the average of the 10 largest cities in America.

Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd) is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC), the nation’s leading competitive energy provider, with approximately 10 million customers. ComEd provides service to approximately 3.9 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, Twitter and YouTube.