February 20
ComEd Unveils New Residential Pricing Option
This week's top smart energy news, curated by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative (SECC).
Member News
ComEd has introduced its new Delivery Time-of-Day (DTOD) pricing option for residential customers to help them better manage energy use and lower costs. “ComEd is doing all we can to reduce costs for families,” said ComEd President and CEO Gil Quiniones. “Delivery Time-of-Day pricing is our latest effort to prioritize affordability and security on behalf of the customers in the communities we are privileged to serve.” DTOD introduces a rate structure where electricity delivery charges change based on the time of day power is used.
In the wee hours of Feb. 2, before temperatures plunged into the teens in North Carolina, Duke Energy pleaded with customers like me to conserve. Since electricity supplies would be strained, the utility said in a blanket email, we could help avoid planned blackouts by lowering our thermostats and perhaps putting on a sweater. I got a text, too, asking me to cut back on “nonessential energy use.”
There is sufficient energy efficiency and demand flexibility in the U.S. grid to affordably offset demand from AI data centers and other growing sources of load, according to a February analysis from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. The largest utility programs provide energy efficiency for a median cost of about $21/MWh, while new combined-cycle gas plants have a levelized cost of energy ranging from $45-$108/MWh, ACEEE said.
Duke Energy Florida continues to improve reliability and reduce outages, thanks in part to its smart, self-healing technology. In 2025 alone, self-healing technology helped avoid more than 280,000 extended power outages for Duke Energy Florida customers. Self-healing technology automatically detects outages and quickly reroutes power to restore service faster or avoid the outage altogether.
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Industry News
Amid a genuine energy affordability crisis, U.S. utilities appear largely committed to business as usual. Consumer electric bills are rising faster than inflation during a period of widespread economic uncertainty, and energy costs were a ballot issue in last fall’s gubernatorial races. Meanwhile, surging demands for power and a more resilient grid are pushing the system toward expensive overbuild, with utilities seeking $31 billion in rate hikes in the past 12 months.
An independent evaluation from Demand Side Analytics (DSA) reports that ecobee’s new Grid Resiliency service delivered 108 MW of critical capacity during the summer 2025 peak demand season. This demonstrates the potential to unlock 2.8 GW of capacity across the U.S. and Canada as grids face increasing strain from extreme weather and rising electricity demand.
El Paso Electric Company (EPE) and Base Power recently announced a new pilot program that will use home battery systems to reduce strain and strengthen the electric grid during periods of high electricity demand. The initiative aims to provide a scalable model for utilities looking to add flexible, customer-sited capacity to the grid more quickly than traditional generation or transmission projects allow, the companies said.
A massive new battery has entered service in southern Maine, providing a much-needed boost to the Northeast’s efforts to expand clean and affordable energy. Developer Plus Power wrapped up its Cross Town Energy Storage project in late November but publicly inaugurated it last week in a ceremony featuring Gov. Janet Mills, who has championed clean energy for the state.
