Electric company first in sector to adopt “100% hourly match” solution from Constellation

As part of its effort to address climate change and achieve net-zero operations, ComEd today announced that it now powers its entire real estate portfolio with 100% carbon-free energy in every hour of every day. In a first-of-its-kind solution, ComEd purchases its clean energy supply from Constellation, the nation’s largest producer of carbon-free energy and a leading competitive retail supplier of power and energy products and services.

“We are combatting climate change by making our electric grid more resilient and enabling the growth of renewables and electric vehicles, but just as importantly, we are leading by example by driving carbon emissions out of our own operations,” said Gil Quiniones, CEO, ComEd. “As the largest electric company in Illinois, it is our duty to take full advantage of the opportunities now available to reduce the use of fossil fuels in our facilities to improve air quality in all of the communities where we operate and where our employees live and work.”

Constellation was chosen through a competitive procurement conducted by ComEd for retail electric service. It provides ComEd with clean energy sourced from within the regional electric grid with most of it produced in the ComEd service territory. This carbon-free energy will match ComEd’s total energy usage on an hourly basis. This 100% hourly match is the first deployment of its kind in Illinois and enables ComEd to directly support the state’s clean energy resources.

“We applaud ComEd for leading by example and demonstrating that hourly carbon-free energy matching is both achievable today and essential to mitigating the climate crisis,” said Jim McHugh, executive vice president and chief commercial officer, Constellation. “A growing number of large commercial and industrial customers are recognizing that matching clean energy production with when they are using their electricity represents the best path to reaching carbon reduction goals. Importantly, this agreement also affirms the critical role of nuclear energy in enabling the viability of hourly carbon-free energy.”

The agreement applies to ComEd’s 54 facilities in northern Illinois, including corporate and regional headquarters, reporting centers, business offices, training and special use facilities and substations. ComEd’s clean energy purchase will meet its annual energy use of about 65,000 megawatt hours. In addition to the hourly energy, ComEd will purchase the environmental attributes associated with that energy, ensuring that the power used by its facilities is generated locally by carbon-free generation resources.

ComEd’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint also include going electric with more of its own fleet vehicles. ComEd plans to electrify 30 percent of its fleet by 2025. This will eliminate 2,000 metric tons of GHG emissions, in addition to the 4,000 metric tons that the ComEd fleet already avoids annually. The company’s goal of electrifying 50 percent of its fleet by 2030 has the potential to eliminate an additional 29,000 metric tons of GHG emissions. ComEd will replace end-of-life internal combustion vehicles with plug-in hybrid and fully electric vehicles, reducing fuel and maintenance costs and creating savings that benefit customers. By 2025, ComEd will replace light duty vehicles (LDVs) approaching the end of their life cycle with electric vehicles and by 2030 all LDVs will be electric.

ComEd also conducts one of the nation’s largest energy efficiency programs, which offers residents, businesses, and the public sector ways to control energy use and costs. Since 2008, the program has saved customers approximately $7.65 billion on their electric bills. Customers have also saved more than 70 million net megawatt-hours of electricity, which is the annual equivalent to reducing 60 billion pounds of carbon emissions from the atmosphere, removing 6 million cars from the road, and powering more than 8 million ComEd customers’ homes for one year.

ComEd is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation (NASDAQ: EXC), a Fortune 250 energy company with approximately 10 million electricity and natural gas customers – the largest number of customers in the U.S. ComEd powers the lives of more than 4 million customers across northern Illinois, or 70 percent of the state’s population. For more information visit ComEd.com and connect with the company on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

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