SPRINGFIELD — Sweeping energy-related legislation that backs the use of big batteries to help make wind and solar power more effective but has raised questions about whether it will increase or decrease energy bills cleared the Illinois Senate Thursday night and will be headed to Gov. JB Pritzker, who signaled he would sign the measure into law.
Legislative Democrats said the measure would eventually lower electric bills for Illinois consumers burdened by utility rate spikes driven by rising power grid demand, while Republicans noted the massive battery installations would be backed in part by a surcharge on consumers’ monthly bills.
The disagreement over the 1,020-page energy bill, mostly along party lines, was reflected in the final 37-22 vote in the Senate on Thursday night, the final day of the General Assembly’s fall session and the last scheduled legislative day of 2025. On Wednesday night, the House approved the bill 70-37. Democrats hold supermajorities in the House and Senate.
After the Senate passed the legislation, Pritzker said in a statement that the bill, dubbed the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, is “an important step that will help lower utility bills and make our electrical grid stronger.”
“Illinois is leading an ambitious clean energy effort that will make our electrical grid more resilient, power our economy, and make energy more affordable for everyone,” the governor said. “I am grateful for working with the Illinois General Assembly and I look forward to signing this bill into law and help Illinoisans keep costs lower and keep the lights on.”
The legislation’s passage comes despite concerns from Republicans, particularly those downstate who’ve repeatedly raised alarms in the last several months about increased utility rates, that the energy policy changes would actually raise monthly electric bills.
The bill was a result of negotiations between lawmakers, organized labor, environmental interests and other groups in response to an especially high demand for electricity in the last couple of years.
Part of this has been attributed to the 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which aims to promote greater use of renewable energy by 2030 and eventually phase out fossil fuels, and to the prevalence of data centers that have taken up a significant share of the electrical supply due to the emergence of artificial intelligence technology.
Democratic state Rep. Jay Hoffman of Swansea, the energy bill’s main House sponsor, warned during floor debate Wednesday night about how not passing the legislation could have grave consequences for consumers, especially at a time when the federal government has sought to cut spending.
“Some would say let’s do nothing. Let’s put our head in the sand and act like just everything’s going to be OK and do nothing. Don’t do planning. Don’t put more capacity on the grid. Don’t make sure that we have energy efficiency,” he said. “But let me tell you this: Without immediate actions, Illinois stands to pay $9.5 billion in increased energy costs by 2034. Utility bills will directly increase by $1 billion by 2030, and Illinois will lose more than 50,000 manufacturing and energy jobs because of the federal budget cuts.”
But House Republicans questioned the delayed gratification the new bill promised.
Some savings from CEJA “never materialized,” Republican state Rep. Dan Ugaste of Geneva said, “and now we’re taking another swipe at it, hoping we get some cost savings at some point in the not-too-distant future. Our ratepayers are suffering now.”
Republican state Rep. Brad Halbrook, a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus who represents Shelbyville, took it even further, calling the bill and previous attempts at energy legislation a “worship service at the altar of the dead green God.”
“We were promised clean energy would mean lower costs, more jobs and a stronger grid. They promised a climate salvation that doesn’t exist,” Halbrook said.
State Rep. Ann Williams, a Chicago Democrat who was one of the lead sponsors of CEJA, disputed claims that the 2021 law won’t save money for consumers by 2030, and also said battery storage in the new bill will “increase power on the grid and keep costs down.”
“Affordability is at the very heart of this energy package and a direct response to consumer concerns about rising utility rates,” she said during Wednesday’s floor debate.
As part of the energy bill, legislators called for adding 3 gigawatts of battery storage to the state’s electricity grid by 2030 — though Republicans and Democrats still disagreed on whether and how quickly the batteries would lower monthly bills enough to pay for themselves.
The batteries would work in tandem with wind and solar to make the electricity they supply less intermittent.
They require billions of dollars in upfront investment, to be financed by battery developers and secured through surcharges on consumers’ monthly utility bills.
But according to an estimate released Monday by the Illinois Power Agency, the batteries would shave a few dollars per month off average residential electricity bills by 2031 by lowering anticipated rate increases for future space on regional electricity grids.
The cost of getting 3 gigawatts of batteries up and running on the grid by 2031 would add 58 to 68 cents per month to the average residential bill for Ameren customers in mostly downstate Illinois and 40 to 48 cents for Commonwealth Edison customers in the Chicago region, according to the IPA analysis.
However, the agency said, the batteries would pay for themselves by reducing the anticipated rate increases for future space on regional transmission grids. In total, by 2031, the batteries would reduce average Ameren residential bills by $3.90 to $8.28 per month and average ComEd residential bills by $1.46 to $1.85 per month, the agency said.
Including all its other provisions, the energy bill would reduce average Ameren residential bills by $4.49 to $10.59 per month and average ComEd residential bills by $1.46 to $2.03 per month by 2031, the IPA said.
In one big policy change from the new energy bill, for the first time since deregulating energy markets in 1997, the legislature would allow the Illinois Commerce Commission to sign long-term contracts and allow higher utility bills to procure new sources of electrical generation in the state.
Deregulation didn’t provide as much new electricity for the state as hoped, said Mark Pruitt, former director of the Illinois Power Agency, a state energy regulator.
That’s because regional grid operators, such as the Midwest Independent System Operator and PJM Interconnection, have been reluctant to hook up intermittent sources such as wind and solar, despite their declining cost, he said.
The state’s policy shift comes as Illinois faces looming electricity shortages not just because of rising demand from data centers, but also because of its plan to close 28 gigawatts of coal and natural gas generating plants by 2045 to improve air quality.
The ICC and other agencies plan to issue a final report by mid-December on the adequacy of the state’s electricity supply through 2030.
In addition, the bill would fund pilot programs for geothermal energy networks, repeal the existing moratorium on new large-scale nuclear construction and increase subsidies to retrofit homes to use less energy.
Mark Denzler, president of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, dismissed the projected savings as the kind of Springfield promise that often fails to materialize.
“There’s too much of a rate hike that we think is going to cause a negative reaction for Illinois families and Illinois businesses,” Denzler said in a news conference on Monday.
Even with its new batteries, Illinois won’t have enough round-the-clock or baseload power and will still need to delay the planned closing of coal and natural gas power plants, Denzler said.
Jen Walling, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council, said her group supports the bill as a way to offset changes in federal policies, such as the phasing out of tax incentives for wind and solar power.
“This is us responding to the federal cuts in a really robust way that no other state has done,” Walling said.
“It’s going to mean we’ll save more through efficiency. It’s going to mean building more renewable energy. It means new money for battery storage, but we expect that to be a savings very quickly to consumers, as it has been in other states,’’ she said.
Chicago Tribune’s Dan Petrella contributed.
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