News Article

Smart grid and system improvements help avoid more than 500,000 outages over the summer

powerlines

CHICAGO -

While the summer of 2019 set records for heat and brought severe storms, ComEd customers stayed cool thanks to record-setting reliability during the season. Smart grid investments over the last seven years helped to set records in key reliability measurements, including frequency of outages, and through smart switches that reroute power around potential problem areas, avoided more than 538,000 customer interruptions from June to August.

"In a summer where we were challenged by extreme weather, we saw our smart grid investments and our people continue to deliver the highest levels of reliability for the families and businesses we serve," said Joe Dominguez, CEO of ComEd. "We're proud to deliver the most affordable, cleanest and, as we demonstrated this summer, most reliable energy to our customers. I want to thank our 6,000 employees who work around the clock in often challenging conditions to power our communities."

ComEd has avoided more than 13 million customer interruptions since 2012, due in part to smart grid and system improvements. The avoided outages have resulted in $2.4 billion in estimated savings to society. In addition to keeping energy flowing for residents, strong power reliability continues to help persuade businesses to expand in northern Illinois and Chicago. The GridWise Alliance recently recognized Illinois as the No. 2 state in the nation for its smart grid implementation.

"Our smart grid investments has vastly improved the infrastructure of our system," said Terry Donnelly, ComEd president and chief operating officer. "We review the system and our operations continually to make sure we're investing in areas that benefit the greatest number of customers. On a daily basis and during storms, our customers are seeing fewer and fewer interruptions to their lives and businesses."

ComEd customers also set records for energy savings this summer. Through its Peak Time Savings program, ComEd empowered nearly 300,000 families and individuals to lower their bills by a total of more than $4 million this summer for voluntarily reducing their energy use during times of peak demand. Since the Peak Time Savings program launched in 2015, participating customers have earned a total of more than $10 million in bill credits.

Related News

SDG&E Wants More Money From Customers Who Don’t Buy Much Electricity. A Lot More.

SAN DIEGO - The utility San Diego Gas & Energy has an aggressive proposal pending before the California Public Utilities Commission: It wants to charge most residential customers a minimum bill of $38.40 each month, regardless of how much energy they use. The costs of this policy would hit low-income customers and those who generate their own energy with rooftop solar. We’re urging the Commission to oppose this flawed plan—and we need your help.

SDG&E’s proposal is bad news for sustainable energy. About half of the customers whose bills would go up under this proposal have rooftop solar. The policy would…

READ MORE
powerlines

Hydro-Quebec begins talks for $185-billion strategy to wean the province off fossil fuels

READ MORE

riverbend nuclear power plant

NRC Begins Special Inspection at River Bend Nuclear Power Plant

READ MORE

Tesla Electric is preparing to expand in the UK

READ MORE

ontario electricity prices

Secret Liberal cabinet document reveals Electricity prices to soar

READ MORE