Illinois Democratic leaders and clean energy groups are racing to pass a wide-reaching energy bill this month to insulate consumers from the Trump administration and regional grid operators whom they blame for “an electricity affordability crisis.”
A key provision of the bill would require six gigawatts of grid-scale battery storage over the next decade. It’s a provision that the Illinois Power Agency estimates would produce savings for consumers across the state who saw electricity bills rise sharply over the summer.
The effort to pass the legislation before the Illinois General Assembly wraps up its fall veto session at the end of the month faces pushback from Republicans and large power users. The lobbying push also reflects a growing sense of urgency to take more control over the state’s energy future as prices rise across the regional electric grids that serve Illinois, PJM Interconnection and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO).
Lawmakers pushing for action say they also want to insulate Illinois from swings in federal energy policy under President Donald Trump.
“Thanks to Trump’s chaotic leadership, our clean energy economy and climate are at great risk,” said Chicago-area Rep. Ann Williams, who heads the Illinois Green Caucus, during a recent news conference. “We have to take action here in Illinois.”
A draft version of the 800-page bill introduced last month by Democratic state Rep. Jay Hoffman, goes far beyond batteries. It would bolster renewable energy procurement, create a long-term planning requirement for Illinois utilities, boost utility energy-savings goals and broaden the state’s existing Solar for All program, aiming to boost solar adoption by low-income consumers.
“Our goal primarily is to give the state tools to address resource adequacy needs, expand clean energy and keep costs low,” Hoffman told lawmakers.
Kady McFadden, legislative strategist for the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, a group of dozens of local, state and national environmental and clean energy organizations, said there’s heightened urgency to take action before lawmakers recess on Oct. 30, given the shift in federal policies since the bill was introduced in the spring and outrage from consumers who saw their electricity bills jump in recent months.
As recently as January, the coalition was pushing for passage of a bill dubbed the Clean and Reliable Grid Act during the Legislature’s lame duck session. In a sign of the times, the title of the bill the group was lobbying for took on a new word, “affordability,” by the time the spring session got underway.
“This is, at its core, a ratepayer protection bill,” McFadden said in an interview.
GOP lawmakers and some of the state’s largest electricity users disagree. They argue Illinois’ existing policies enacted in recent years are at the root of the problem and say core provisions of the legislation being considered will only cause electricity bills to rise further.
The Illinois Manufacturers Association and Illinois Industrial Energy Consumers, which represent the state’s largest power users, particularly take aim at the energy storage provision and a requirement for utilities to submit long-range integrated resource plans (IRPs).
“This is a significant rate increase on every consumer in Illinois, whether it’s a homeowner, a school, a church, a retailer or manufacturer,” said the manufacturing association’s CEO, Mark Denzler.
Denzler blames the recent spike in electricity prices on an imbalance between supply and demand in PJM and MISO. The group wants to extend mandatory closure dates for coal- and gas-fired power plants in Illinois, which were part of the state’s landmark 2021 climate law, and to see development of new power plants, transmission and battery storage.
But the group wants grid-scale batteries financed through state-issued bonds, not procured through the Illinois Power Agency (IPA), a state agency formed two decades ago to buy energy on behalf of the state’s investor-owned utilities.
Hammering out a compromise
The IPA said its “conservative” analysis of the provision shows that the 6 GW of storage, estimated to cost $14 billion, would provide net benefits to ratepayers.
Storage developers and clean energy groups contend the provision would work in much the same way as the state’s nuclear program, which, while initially requiring a subsidy to reactors, is now generating bill credits for consumers.
Illinois House and Senate committees conducted hours of hearings on the sprawling bill in recent weeks and negotiations are ongoing to try to hammer out compromises among a wide array of interests ranges from energy developers to environmental groups, labor, industrial energy users and the data center lobby.
While legislation pushed by the clean energy coalition failed to pass during the spring, that was before electricity bills in Illinois surged beginning June 1 to reflect capacity price increases related to auctions held by PJM and MISO.
Prices for power plant capacity in PJM — a key component of consumer electricity bills — rose fivefold on June 1. They’re poised to jump further next summer. In MISO, which covers the central and southern areas of the state, capacity prices during the summer rose by a factor of 20.
In PJM, three quarters of the capacity price increases were driven by demand from data centers in areas like Northern Virginia, which is outstripping the ability to get new generation online, according to the market’s independent monitor, Joe Bowring, who testified at one of the hearings.
Hoffman, the bill’s sponsor, was among those who pointed a finger at the two regional grid operators for contributing to the rise in prices. Jonathan Feipel, executive director of the Illinois Commerce Commission staff, was even more pointed in testimony last week.
“The real price hikes we’ve seen over the summer, I would argue, are a direct result of PJM and MISO kind of mismanaging markets,” Feipel said.
The unhappiness with rising power prices and the role of the grid operators is reflected in another provision in the bill that would have the ICC conduct a study on whether Illinois would be better off creating its own single-state grid operator, like New York or California, compared with being part of two multi-state markets.
Another piece of the bill is based on a proposal by GOP state Sen. Sue Rezin and would lift a moratorium on new large nuclear power plants in Illinois, the state with the nation’s largest existing fleet of reactors.
Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law in 2023 lifting the ban on nuclear development for projects less than 300 megawatts. The policy was aimed at enabling development of small modular reactors.
Now technology companies are eyeing larger-scale projects, too, as a long-term answer to growing power needs to run AI data centers. Rezin told POLITICO’s E&E News earlier this year that the growing power requirements of companies looking to build projects in her district and elsewhere in Illinois require the expansion of all forms of power generation, including nuclear.
Constellation Energy, which operates nuclear plants in Illinois, backs the proposal. The Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, meanwhile, argues that nuclear wouldn’t ease the burden on consumers and said the bill’s focus should be on reducing energy costs and helping the state achieve the goals established in the 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act.
Illinois’ largest utilities, ComEd and Ameren, said they’re neutral on the bill, though officials from both have been actively involved in hearings.
“This summer’s electric capacity constraints, which led to significant bill increases for our customers, underscore the ongoing energy supply challenge in Illinois,” said Matt Tomc, Ameren Illinois’ vice president of regulatory policy and energy supply. He added that the utility is “sensitive to the projected costs of the proposed solutions” and urged lawmakers to move cautiously.
