Commercial Energy in Addison, IL: Electricity & Gas

Utility and supplier-choice checkpoint

The utilities below are local service context, not an address-level eligibility guarantee. Confirm the current bill, service address, account holder, and rate class before requesting a change.

Electricity: Eligible ComEd-served business accounts can compare retail electric supply while ComEd continues delivery. Use the ICC’s electric-choice explanation and the account’s ComEd tariff and rate class. Keep supply, delivery demand, and capacity inputs separate.

Natural gas: Nicor lists this community in its service territory. For a Nicor business account, Customer Select is the relevant supplier-choice program. Check current eligibility, supplier fees, billing arrangements, and applicable utility charges and credits.

Supplier selection affects the supply arrangement. It does not replace the delivery utility or its infrastructure and emergency responsibilities. A change in supplier does not guarantee a lower total bill.

Price the production schedule you actually run

For an Addison operator fitting out a production unit, the useful comparison is the meter before and after the new equipment arrives. A prior tenant’s annual consumption can hide the effect of a second shift, an added compressor, or a new electric process. Record the planned change alongside the historical bills rather than presenting old usage as the forecast.

Ask which machines can run together and who controls their start times. A demand review should connect interval data to the operating log; a high monthly kW value by itself does not identify the machine responsible. Keep a delivery-demand improvement separate from a supplier’s energy-price offer so the same benefit is not counted twice.

Account review steps

1. Identify the meter serving production rather than the adjoining office.
2. Mark equipment commissioning and shift changes on the usage history.
3. Ask whether volume tolerance accommodates the planned production change.

Worked Energy Desk example

Suppose the account uses 36,000 kWh over 30 days, with a 120 kW measured peak. Load factor is 36,000 ÷ (120 × 30 × 24) = 41.7%. In the demand and load-factor explorer, enter measured peak for load factor and billed kW for the demand-cost calculation.

If billed demand were 120 kW at an illustrative $10/kW and could fall by 12 kW under the tariff, the modeled period charge would change from $1,200 to $1,080. Minimums, ratchets, and other provisions may prevent that result. Monthly peak kW is not a capacity PLC. These are illustrative inputs, not local utility rates, supplier quotes, or promised savings.

Utilities in Addison

• Electricity: ComEd is the delivery utility, with commercial supplier choice available. See the ComEd commercial guide.
• Natural gas: Nicor Gas is the delivery utility, with commercial supplier choice through Customer Select. See the Nicor Gas commercial guide.

Confirm both utilities from a recent bill. The utility continues delivery and emergency service when a business chooses a supplier.

Supply vs delivery: how the bill splits

Every commercial energy bill in Addison has two parts, and understanding the split is the key to procurement. Delivery is what ComEd charges to move electricity over its wires — and what Nicor charges to move gas through its pipes — plus metering, billing, and restoring service after an outage or leak. Delivery is regulated by the Illinois Commerce Commission and does not change based on who supplies the commodity. Supply is the cost of the energy itself, and that is the portion an eligible business can shop.

In ComEd territory, an eligible commercial account can buy its electricity supply from a licensed Alternative Retail Electric Supplier (ARES) under a fixed or indexed contract, or stay on ComEd's default utility supply, which resets periodically. On the gas side, Nicor's Customer Select program lets a commercial account move its gas supply to a certified alternative supplier while Nicor keeps delivering the gas and handling emergencies. Choosing a supplier never changes who responds to a downed line or a gas leak — that stays with ComEd and Nicor. A supplier contract affects only the supply line on the bill.

What shapes energy costs here

• Manufacturing accounts are demand- and capacity-sensitive — see manufacturing energy procurement.
• Warehousing and distribution accounts are driven by lighting/HVAC energy plus equipment demand — see warehouse energy procurement.
• ComEd/PJM capacity applies, so peak behavior feeds the capacity tag and future supply cost.

For a demand-billed account, the meter records not only how much energy is used (kWh) but the highest rate of use in the month (kW). That peak drives demand charges, and in the ComEd/PJM market an account's peak behavior across a handful of high-demand summer hours sets a capacity tag (PLC) that follows the account into the next delivery year and into its supply cost. This is why two Addison facilities with similar total usage can carry very different bills: the one with sharper, spikier peaks pays more. It is also why a PJM capacity auction clearing price is a wholesale figure, not a rate you can read off a bill. Gas costs, by contrast, are more seasonal — heating and process load concentrate in winter — so the shape of a gas contract matters as much as the headline price.

Getting started

Provide 12 months of electric and gas bills for an Addison facility (interval data helps for high-demand accounts), and the account can be reviewed and priced on matched terms through the procurement process. Gather the utility account numbers, the rate class shown on each bill, and any current supplier contract's end date so timing lines up with the renewal. Operators with more than one building can group accounts and align renewal dates through multi-location procurement. No savings figure is promised in advance.