Commercial Energy in Chicago, IL: ComEd, Peoples Gas & Supplier Choice

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: For a Peoples Gas account, use business Choices for You and verify the account’s applicable rate. Nicor lists some Chicago annexed areas, so the service address and bill take priority over the city name.

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.

Give the tenant and the building owner different review tasks

For a Chicago tenant, a lease expense does not necessarily identify a shoppable meter. Common-area lighting, a central boiler, and the tenant’s plug load may have different account holders. Start with a meter schedule that names the party authorized to contract for each account, then reconcile it to the lease’s reimbursement provisions.

For a ComEd-served manufacturing, refrigerated, or other demand-billed site, obtain the measured demand history and the separate account capacity information. Monthly peak kW helps explain delivery demand; a capacity PLC represents a different billing input. Request written treatment of capacity and transmission in the proposal rather than assuming “fixed” means every supply component is fixed.

On a Peoples Gas account, the Choices for You business program identifies eligible rate classes. Compare offers using therms, complete supplier fees, and the applicable utility charges or credits. A business opening in an annexed area should still check the gas bill: Nicor’s community list also includes Chicago annexed areas. The utility on the bill controls the program.

Account review steps

1. Match tenant, common-area, and boiler meters to contracting authority.
2. Request written capacity and transmission inclusions for ComEd offers.
3. Confirm Peoples Gas versus another gas utility for the service address.

Worked Energy Desk example

Suppose two complete electric proposals cover 186,000 kWh a year over the same term. Offer A includes all modeled variable supply components at 8¢/kWh plus $20 per month. Offer B includes the same components at 8.4¢/kWh with no monthly fee. The offer comparison calculates annual supply costs of $15,120 and $15,624, a difference of $504.

Set an included component to zero only when the proposal confirms it is included or inapplicable; leave an unresolved component blank. Delivery and taxes still need separate treatment. For gas, select the gas mode and use consistent therm-based rates, including the bill’s heat-content factor when converting Ccf. These are illustrative inputs, not local utility rates, supplier quotes, or promised savings.

Utilities in Chicago

• Electricity: ComEd (Commonwealth Edison) is the delivery utility for Chicago and the rest of northern Illinois. ComEd's electric system sits in the PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator for the area. Eligible commercial accounts can choose a competitive supplier for the supply portion of their electricity. See the ComEd commercial electricity guide.
• Natural gas: Peoples Gas — formally The Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company — is the delivery utility for the city of Chicago. Peoples Gas runs the Choices for You program, under which eligible customers can select a licensed alternative gas supplier while Peoples Gas continues to deliver the gas. See the Peoples Gas commercial service guide.

Both utilities can be confirmed on a recent bill. Because service territories follow infrastructure rather than city limits in every case, always verify the delivery utilities for the exact service address before acting.

Supply versus delivery, and how choice works here

Every Chicago commercial energy bill is really two jobs bundled together. Delivery is the regulated service the utility provides: ComEd owns and maintains the poles, wires, transformers, and electric meters, and Peoples Gas owns and maintains the gas mains, service lines, and gas meters. Delivery covers moving the energy to your building, keeping the network in good repair, reading the meter, and responding to outages and gas emergencies. Delivery charges are set through regulated rates and do not change based on which supplier you use.

Supply is the commodity — the electricity and the natural gas themselves. This is the portion open to competition. On the electric side, an eligible commercial account can buy supply from a licensed Alternative Retail Electric Supplier (ARES) rather than taking ComEd's default supply. On the gas side, the Peoples Gas Choices for You program lets eligible customers buy the gas commodity from a licensed alternative gas supplier. In both cases the delivery utility stays exactly the same, and so does its responsibility for reliability and emergencies. A supplier contract only sets the price and terms of the supply portion of the bill. To understand the mechanics in more depth, see how Illinois commercial electricity choice works and how commercial natural gas choice works in Illinois.

Crucially, choosing a supplier changes nothing about who keeps the lights on or who responds to a gas leak. If a storm knocks out power, ComEd restores it. If there is a gas emergency, Peoples Gas responds. The competitive supplier never touches the physical network.

What shapes commercial energy costs in Chicago

Several factors influence what a Chicago business pays, and they vary widely by account type:

• Rate class and account size. A small storefront on a general-service rate has a very different cost structure than a large demand-billed facility. The rate class on the bill determines which charges apply and how they are calculated.
• Demand charges. Many commercial accounts are billed not just on total kilowatt-hours but on peak demand — the highest rate of draw in a billing period. Two businesses using the same total energy can pay differently if one has sharper peaks, so the rate class and demand structure both matter.
• Load shape and hours of operation. When a business uses energy matters, not just how much. A restaurant, a warehouse running one shift, and a 24-hour facility each present a different load shape that affects supply pricing.
• PJM market dynamics. Because ComEd sits in PJM, wholesale capacity and energy market conditions in that region influence supply pricing over time. These are market outcomes rather than fixed line items you control, but they are part of the backdrop for any supply decision.
• Natural gas seasonality. Gas demand for heating and process load rises in winter, which is why the gas account is worth reviewing on its own terms alongside electricity.

None of these factors resolve into a single number without looking at a specific account's bills and usage. That is the point of gathering real data before pricing anything.

What a Chicago business should gather

Before requesting pricing or comparing suppliers, assemble the following:

• A recent electric bill and a recent gas bill for each service address.
• Account numbers and meter numbers.
• The rate class for each account.
• Any current competitive supplier contract and its end date.
• For demand-billed electric accounts, 12 months of usage history and interval data if the utility can provide it.

This packet does two things. It confirms the delivery utilities and rate classes, and it gives a supplier enough detail to quote the supply portion on matched terms — the same volume, the same term length, the same structure — so that offers can be compared honestly rather than on headline numbers alone.

Getting started

Begin by confirming that ComEd is the electric delivery utility and Peoples Gas is the gas delivery utility for your address, then determine whether each account is energy-only or demand-billed. From there, pull the 12 months of bills and usage described above and the account can be reviewed and priced through a disciplined commercial energy procurement process that compares supply on matched terms while delivery stays with the utility.

No specific savings, rate, or outcome is promised in advance. The goal is a clear, apples-to-apples comparison and a supply arrangement suited to how a Chicago business actually operates — with ComEd and Peoples Gas continuing to deliver the energy and stand behind the network either way.