Illinois regulators greenlit ComEd’s plan to charge bigger security deposits for data centers and other large-load projects. (Capitol News Illinois)
ComEd is one of the country’s biggest electric utilities, serving around 4M customers. As hyperscalers flock to Illinois, ComEd has 75+ large-load projects in the queue requesting over 28 GW—nearly 1.2X the utility’s all-time peak demand.
Under the revised tariff, deposits for projects requesting 50-200 MW start at $1M and rise by $500K per additional 100 MW. Previously, everyone paid a flat $1M. With this shift, ComEd aims to shield ratepayers (and itself) from costs associated with cancelled projects.
A new approach: The deposit strategy is unique among all the data center tariff structures used by over two-dozen utilities across 19 states. And if the data center boom continues to slow…it’ll likely prove useful.