Judith Ruiz-Branch
Illinois News Connection
Illinois plans to spend $1.5 billion through 2027 in significant grid investments to help meet the state’s ambitious clean-energy goals, with nearly half of funds going toward addressing environmental disparities.
The Climate and Equity Jobs Act requires at least 40% of state grid investments to benefit underserved and low-income communities.
Brad Klein, managing attorney with the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said fulfilling it means first learning more about existing issues.
“That requires new tools to sort of analyze disparities in service. So, do some neighborhoods enjoy better reliability than others? There’s new modeling in the plans to try to discover that,” he said.
As well as plans to upgrade substations, which include poles and wires, to close any existing gaps – and what Klein calls “full and fair access” for people in all communities to invest in things like rooftop solar, electrification and heat pumps.
The Illinois Commerce Commission rejected initial plans by Ameren and ComEd because they didn’t demonstrate how the utility companies would benefit disadvantaged communities or keep monthly costs down for customers. Both companies revised their proposals which now outline both and describe plans for increased reliability, including key upgrades to increase the grid’s power demand and make it more resilient to outages. Klein said overall, it means easier access to local clean energy.
“We’ll have better options for connecting rooftop solar and community solar to the grid, and if done well, over time that also can help lead to opportunities for energy cost savings for customers and certainly address climate change,” Klein continued.
Although officials say increases in monthly bills to customers will vary based on service class and energy usage, the ComEd plan shows an average increase of about $22 per year until 2027, while Ameren estimates an increase of less than $1 per month.
Region: Springfield,Feeds,News,Prairie,Region: Central,City: Springfield
via WMAY – 92.7 WMAY https://www.wmay.com
January 18, 2025 at 09:28PM
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