ComEd Announces New Transmission Security Agreements to Ensure Large Load Customers Pay Fair Share to Connect with and Use the Grid

ComEd, a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation, has announced the first set of new Transmission Security Agreements (TSAs) to protect customers and ensure fairness in the cost of connecting and providing transmission service to new large loads requesting service from the grid.

The agreements will help safeguard existing customers from bearing costs of serving proposed large load projects and ensure that the new projects pay their fair share even if they do not fully materialize. They include revenue commitments secured to the transmission services requested by eight customers, representing an expected new load greater than 6.5 GW.

Together, the eight agreements will prevent existing ComEd customers from bearing responsibility for more than $2 billion in transmission charges over a 10-year period.

Under the TSAs, all existing customers are protected from transmission service costs expected to be absorbed by new large load projects, even if those projects do not meet their expected load. Without the TSA, other customers will have to tolerate those costs, while under the TSA, the large load applicant will cover the shortfall. The TSA payments the applicant makes will reduce, on a dollar-for-dollar basis, the costs other customers will have to cover.

As part of the TSAs, ComEd will require a firm financial commitment from developers of projects 50 MWs or above. The take or pay agreement requires collateral for 10 years of transmission service revenues, according to the load requirements ComEd is asked to serve.

The new TSA provides a replicable approach to be used for future large load requests, and reduces speculative projects, which will help ensure that ComEd makes the right levels of investment required to serve new large loads while upholding system reliability.

Rightsizing ComEd’s pipeline of large load requests and reducing speculative projects are crucial steps as future load projections have an impact on energy supply costs in the wholesale power markets. ComEd does not own generation, participate in the auction, or profit from the costs associated with PJM auctions, they are passed onto ComEd bills to customers on the supply side of the bill, without any markup.

The new TSAs will help ComEd protect its existing customers as supply prices continue to rise, from expanding financial assistance options for its most affected customers, to advocating for new generation to come online to meet the growing level of demand.

ComEd also proposed a series of retail large load tariff modifications before the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC). The tariff modifications will require higher initial application deposits and larger deposit requirements for the company’s electrical infrastructure installed on a new customer’s property if they do not meet their load request or cover the associated revenue requirement. A decision is expected in early 2026.