Commercial Energy in Arlington Heights, 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.

Tie the supply term to the lease decision

An Arlington Heights storefront renewing its lease needs two calendars: the property commitment and the energy agreement. A competitive supply term that extends well beyond a possible relocation deserves a review of assignment, transfer, closure, and early-termination provisions before it is priced against a shorter proposal.

For an owner with several suites, first distinguish tenant-held meters from common-area accounts. One property address can contain several decision makers. Build the proposal around accounts the signer can authorize, and retain the landlord’s shared-area bill separately from a tenant’s reimbursed utility expense.

Account review steps

1. Record lease options and the date a relocation decision will be made.
2. Check the notice method and recipient in the signed supply agreement.
3. Separate shared corridor lighting from the tenant’s electric account.

Worked Energy Desk example

For an illustrative contract ending May 30, 2027, suppose the signed agreement requires notice at least 60 days before the end date and contains no earlier-notice restriction. The renewal planner places the latest notice date on March 31, 2027. With a 14-day internal buffer, the preparation target is March 17, 2027.

Use the real agreement’s notice window, recipient, delivery method, and receipt requirements. A contractual month is not necessarily thirty days, and the model does not interpret ambiguous wording or adjust deadlines for legal rules. Confirm terms before acting. This example is a planning calculation, not a universal Illinois notice requirement.

Utilities in Arlington Heights

• 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: what you can and cannot shop

A commercial bill in Arlington Heights separates into delivery and supply. Delivery is what ComEd charges to run the wires, and what Nicor charges to run the pipes, plus metering, billing, and emergency response — a regulated cost set by the Illinois Commerce Commission that stays the same no matter who supplies the energy. Supply is the commodity itself, and that is the shoppable part.

In ComEd territory, an eligible commercial account can take its electricity supply from a licensed Alternative Retail Electric Supplier (ARES) under contract or remain on ComEd's default utility supply, which resets on a set schedule. Nicor's Customer Select program does the same for gas: a certified alternative supplier provides the gas commodity while Nicor continues delivery and safety response. Switching a supplier does not touch reliability — ComEd still restores power after a storm and Nicor still handles a gas emergency. Only the supply line on the bill changes.

What shapes energy costs here

• Downtown retail and restaurants — restaurants in particular carry both electricity and significant natural gas load.
• Office accounts benefit from clean supply comparison and a bill review.
• Larger single meters (office buildings, big-box retail) may be demand-billed, making demand charges relevant.

Most small offices and shops are billed mainly on the energy they use (kWh) plus delivery, so a clean supply comparison and a careful bill review are usually the highest-value steps. Larger single meters — an office building, a supermarket, a big-box store — often carry a demand (kW) component, where the monthly peak drives a meaningful part of the charge, and in the ComEd/PJM market that peak behavior also feeds a capacity tag that follows the account into future supply cost. Restaurants sit in their own category: cooking, water heating, and space heating give them real gas load, so procuring natural gas alongside electricity matters more for them than for a typical office. Gas load is seasonal, concentrating in winter, so contract shape and term are worth weighing against the headline price.

Getting started

Provide a recent electric and (where applicable) gas bill for an Arlington Heights business — 12 months of usage helps for anything demand-billed — and the account can be reviewed and priced on matched terms through the procurement process. Have the utility account numbers, the rate class on each bill, and any existing supplier contract's end date ready so the timing aligns with the renewal window.

A practical note on timing: supply is usually shopped in a window ahead of the current term's expiration, which leaves room to compare offers rather than deciding under a deadline or drifting onto a hold-over rate. A downtown business with both electric and gas load can review the two together and align their renewal dates so the account is looked at once a year instead of twice. No savings figure is promised in advance — the aim is a clear, matched-terms comparison the business can act on.