ComEd is offering payments of up to $500 for small business customers who can’t pay their electric bills following two years of price spikes related to data center growth.
The grant applications will be available June 15 on a first-come basis. For more information, go to www.comed.com/SMBrelief.
Business owners will be expected to pay some amount of money as part of the “matching” requirement of the grant application. So, if you owe $1,000, you can apply for $500 but then you also have to pay ComEd the other $500.
The payouts are part of a $2.5 million assistance program the utility determined was needed as residents and businesses face higher electric bills in large part because of the energy demand from massive artificial intelligence data centers.
The program follows a similar plan for residential customers announced a year ago.
“Our focus last year was residential and we think the appropriate segment to focus on now is small- and medium-sized business,” ComEd Chief Executive Gil Quiniones said in an interview.
Quiniones said the utility will continue to work with businesses on energy-efficiency practices, which he said can significantly lower power bills.
While there will not be a similar individual customer grant program this year, Quiniones said residents have some options if they cannot pay their bills. For one, ComEd started a low-income discount program last year. For more information, go to www.comed.com/LID.
The Sun-Times reported last month that ComEd customers will see at least a 12% increase in monthly charges starting in June in part because of the demand for energy created by an explosion in AI data centers being built.
The data center demand doesn’t seem to be slowing.
Quiniones said there are around 100 proposed data center projects in Northern Illinois, though it’s unlikely that all of them will go forward.
ComEd officials have said they understand how the higher bills are another financial strain on people and small businesses. They’re also quick to explain that the utility doesn’t produce the energy. Rather, the prices ComEd pays for electricity are driven by anticipated future demand and set by Pennsylvania-based electric grid operator PJM.
“ComEd does not set, control or profit from” those particular price hikes, the company has said.
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