After months of significant problems, CUB
joins Community Solar companies, victimized customers to call on
ComEd to promptly fix fiasco without forcing customers to pay for
utility giant's ineptitude
CHICAGO, June 24,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- With Commonwealth Edison's
botched billing system upgrade effectively blocking Illinois' money-saving Community Solar
program, the Citizens Utility Board (CUB) on Monday demanded that
the utility giant finally resolve the months-long problems and
abandon a ploy to force frustrated customers to pay nearly
$30 million to help fix the
fiasco.
"This is unacceptable," CUB Executive Director Sarah Moskowitz said. "ComEd needs to fix its
billing mess now without charging customers a single penny more for
its ineptitude. It's ironic that ComEd, a company that touts itself
as a clean energy champion, has bungled its billing system so
severely that it has effectively blocked the Community Solar
program, which has been a clean energy success story in
Illinois. People depend on this
program as a way to cut their bills and support clean energy–they
deserve better from a utility whose parent company rakes in
billions of dollars in profits."
The billing system revamp was originally slated to be up and
running Feb. 20. The supposed
upgrade, which ComEd said was "designed to deliver
an improved customer experience," included a new look for bills and
a new account number for each customer. But four months later,
numerous problems persist and the error-prone system has
effectively halted the Community Solar program, denying
customers money-saving credits they are supposed to receive on
their ComEd bills.
Community Solar, which was created under the 2016 Future Energy
Jobs Act and got additional support from the 2021 Climate and
Equitable Jobs Act, offers Illinois consumers the benefits of solar
power without having to install panels at their homes. That makes
the program an attractive and practical option for millions of
apartment dwellers and people with shady roofs who in the past
simply could never have considered solar power.
Under the program, ComEd customers who participate subscribe–at
a discounted rate–to a portion of the energy output of a Community
Solar provider's large, offsite solar farm. Each month, those
participants then get credits on their ComEd bills for the amount
of power generated by their subscription at the solar farm. The
program also has a component for lower-income households that
guarantees savings.
However, ComEd's billing revamp has sparked a long list of
problems. For example, Community Solar credits that were supposed
to help lower participants' costs disappeared from ComEd bills—and
sometimes the entire Community Solar section went missing. Other
customers have seen only partial credits, or the credits were
listed erroneously as a "previous balance due immediately." As a
result of the ComEd billing debacle, Community Solar is now stalled
in Illinois, with Community Solar
providers unable to send their monthly bills to customers.
Making matters worse, ComEd in its latest rate-hike request
($1.1 billion over four years) is
trying to bill customers for fixing its blunders. As part of
ComEd's second multi-year grid plan—the first was rejected by state
regulators last December because the utility didn't do enough to
prove that its plan would be affordable for customers—the company
proposes spending another $29.5
million on IT-related costs in response to the billing
problems. A portion of the money would be recovered in the latest
rate-hike request, with the rest recovered in decades to come, plus
interest.
In testimony, CUB opposes that proposal on the grounds that
ComEd shouldn't be charging customers for expenses caused by the
company's own incompetence. "Charging ratepayers to redo a supposed
billing system upgrade that ComEd botched is simply adding insult
to injury," Moskowitz said.
Community solar providers have complained of other problems,
including:
- Lack of access to fully functioning online tools with important
customer information that helps the sign-up process go
smoothly.
- An online portal that has been plagued with glitches and
actually crashed for three months, making it difficult to enroll
new participants and update the accounts of current participants in
Community Solar.
- Customer confusion over the new billing system's creation of a
"Choice ID" –in addition to the traditional account number—for
Community Solar customers. (Some customers reported having multiple
Choice ID numbers.)
- Customer service agents who provide inaccurate
information—including that the utility is unaware of the issue and
cannot help and that Community Solar companies are to blame.
CUB demands that ComEd take several actions:
- promptly fix the billing fiasco;
- reimburse Community Solar customers for the bill credits they
have been denied this year;
- spare customers any headaches (late fees, disconnections) for
problems caused by billing system blunders;
- cease any attempt to charge customers for any expenses related
to correcting its flawed billing system.
More detail on Illinois'
Community Solar program:
Under the program, participants
subscribe to a portion of the energy output of a Community Solar
provider's large, offsite solar farm. Each month, participants pay
that provider for the amount of electricity generated by their
subscription, minus a discount (typically providers in Illinois offer 10-15 percent). The provider
then reports the output of the subscription to ComEd, which adds
credits to its electric bill equal to that output. (For example, if
a participant's solar credits are worth $100 of electricity and a provider offers a 15
percent discount, the participant would save $100 on their ComEd bill and only pay the
community solar provider $85.)
The Citizens Utility Board (CUB) is celebrating its
40th anniversary as Illinois'
leading nonprofit utility watchdog group. Created by the Illinois
Legislature, CUB opened its doors in 1984 to represent the
interests of residential and small-business utility customers.
Since then, CUB has saved consumers more than $20 billion by helping to block rate hikes and
secure refunds. For more information, call CUB's Consumer Hotline
at 1-800-669-5556 or visit CUB's award-winning
website, www.CitizensUtilityBoard.org.
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SOURCE Citizens Utility Board