Evanston's Energy Future

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Everyone in Evanston uses energy whether to charge their phone, cook a meal or wash their hands. How energy is used can impact the air we breathe, our utility bills and the environment through pollution and climate change. Those considerations are particularly important because the Chicago region as a whole has lower air quality partially because of pollution released from vehicles and industry exhaust.

For people in Evanston, energy costs can make it even harder to meet monthly bills and housing expenses. In Evanston, 40% of all households are housing cost burdened and part of that burden is caused by energy costs. Energy affects all of us.

The City of Evanston wants to hear what your priorities are for Evanston’s energy future to help us improve the air we breathe, lower utility bills, support healthier cleaner jobs and achieve 100% renewable energy to fight the climate crisis.

Share your priorities for Evanston’s Energy Future

Evanston Energy Facts

Learn More

Attend one of our three Energy Future Virtual Webinars (The first webinar will be recorded and future webinars will cover the same content). Click the link below to register, registration is required.

Evanston's Energy Future Webinar #2 - Tuesday, July 7th. Presentation PDF
Evanston's Energy Future Webinar #3 - Thursday, July 23rd Presentation PDF

Why now? Why focus on energy during a global health pandemic?

That is a great question, the simplest reason is that three of Evanston's energy agreements expire in the next 12 months which makes an important opportunity to leverage these agreements to reshape Evanston’s energy future. These agreements are: ComEd Franchise Agreement, Community Choice Electricity Aggregation (CCA) and the Municipal Electric Supply Agreement (electricity for City buildings). More detail on them below.

How will the City collect input from the community on energy priorities?

What is the timeline for this process and for the energy agreements?

What are the upcoming energy agreements that are expiring?

ComEd Franchise Agreement, Community Choice Electricity Aggregation (CCA) and the Municipal Electric Supply Agreement (electricity for City buildings).

ComEd Franchise Agreement - One of the energy agreements the City is renegotiating is its Franchise Agreement with Commonwealth Edison (ComEd). The Franchise Agreement allows ComEd to operate and manage the electric distribution system that serves the residents and businesses of Evanston. The current Franchise Agreement expired in September, 2020. Even without an agreement, ComEd is required under state law to continue to provide reliable electric service to all Evanston customers. The City is working to negotiate a new agreement that supports programs and partnerships that reflect our community’s goals for climate action, reliability, and affordability.

As part of these negotiations, the City has changed how it collects some fees from Evanston customers. Historically, ComEd has included a Franchise Cost or Franchise Cost Addition (FCA) on Evanston customers’ bills. Moving forward, residents will also see a new fee on their ComEd bill, called the Infrastructure Maintenance Fee (IMF). Both fees will appear on customers’ bills in Evanston for the next 17 months. After that period, ComEd will stop collecting the FCA and only the IMF will appear on bills.

The cost impact for Evanston residents during the term when both fees will be collected are:

Average Single-Family Account: $0.92/Month
Average Multi-Family Account: $0.63/Month

Evanston will closely monitor ComEd’s collection of these fees to ensure that collection charges are consistent with state law and the approved utility tariff.

Community Choice Electricity Aggregation (CCA) - The Citizens’ Utility Board has an excellent webpage describing this program which you can view here. Community Choice Electricity Aggregation (CCA) allows local governments the option to bundle together residential and small commercial retail electric accounts and seek proposals for a potentially cleaner, cheaper source of power. Evanston has had a CCA since 2012 and since 2014 all electricity supplied to Evanston residents has been 100% renewable through the purchase of renewable energy credits from Illinois renewable energy developments or a neighboring state. Evanston’s agreement was just extended and now expires in June, 2021.

Municipal Electric Supply Agreement - This is just a fancy way of saying the contract that covers most of the City buildings and facilities electricity use, like the Water Treatment Plant, Robert Crown Center and other public facilities. This agreement expires in December, 2020.

Questions about your bill or your ComEd or Nicor Account?

Citizens’ Utility Board (CUB) - Represents the interests of residential utility customers across the state. They can help residents with questions about their bills or if they feel they have been targeted by fraud.

Understand My Bill - ComEd - Learn what all the different charges and fees are on your bill and see how your usage has changed over time.

Understand My Bill - Nicor Gas - Learn what all the different charges and fees are on your bill and see how your usage has changed over time.