Dive Brief:
- The Illinois Commerce Commission has approved Commonwealth Edison’s proposal for a battery-based “scheduled dispatch virtual power plant,” or SDVPP, the Chicago-area utility said last week.
- The program replaces a previous, more limited VPP proposal ComEd withdrew in November following the passage of Illinois’s landmark Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act. The CRGA aims to increase distributed battery storage capacity across northern Illinois, the westernmost extent of the PJM Interconnection, amid increasing grid congestion and rising capacity prices.
- The SDVPP program “is an important step in bolstering the potential of customer-sited energy resources to make the grid more resilient during periods of peak demand while helping customers receive additional value for their support at a time when supply costs are rising,” Andrew Plenge, ComEd’s vice president of strategy and energy policy, said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
Democratic Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act in January, shortly after a U.S. Ccongressional report found Illinois retail electricity prices rose more than 15% in 2025. Illinois’s grid is split between PJM and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, both of which have seen sharp increases in capacity prices.
The CRGA directs Illinois electric utilities to deploy 3 GW of energy storage by 2030 and develop VPPs that leverage distributed assets like residential and small commercial batteries, electric vehicle chargers and HVAC controls. The law contains other load management measures, including expanded energy efficiency programs and a requirement that utilities offer residential time-of-use pricing plans.
ComEd’s SDVPP is “exactly what Illinois lawmakers intended” when they passed the Clean and Reliable Affordability Grid Act last fall: “a way to quickly put distributed energy resources to work for the whole grid,” Will Kenworthy, Midwest regulatory director for Vote Solar, said in a statement.
Kenworthy praised ComEd for moving quickly to stand up the program, which he called “a model for how the clean energy transition can save people money.”
ComEd said the SDVPP will discharge power from enrolled batteries during periods of high power demand, helping shave load peaks that can strain the grid in the densely populated Chicago area.
PJM’s instantaneous load hit 162.7 GW on July 2, less than 3 GW shy of its all-time demand peak in 2006. The grid operator, whose territory stretches from northern Illinois to New Jersey, said it would likely have broken the 2006 record were it not for robust demand response participation.
ComEd says it has connected approximately 1.8 GW of distributed energy resources to its grid.
SDVPP participants must commit to five consecutive seasons, each running from June 1 to September 30, according to a ComEd filing with the ICC. Participants receive seasonal performance payments based on how much energy they inject into ComEd’s distribution grid during peak event.
