Illinois's battery rebate now hands your 4pm to 6pm to the power company
The pay is $10 for each kilowatt a battery averages across every weekday hour from June to September, and the commitment runs five summers.
Commonwealth Edison, the power company for Chicago and northern Illinois, pays a household $300 for every kilowatt-hour of battery capacity it puts on the wall, according to the Citizens Utility Board, a consumer group that advises Illinois customers. The rate schedule the company filed with the state regulator in June says that whoever takes that money must afterwards let the company decide when the battery empties.
The hours are fixed at 4pm to 6pm, Monday to Friday, across a season that runs from June to September. The commitment lasts five of those seasons.
Households that received the rebate on or after 1 June 2026 are, in the tariff's words, "required to participate". Anyone whose battery predates that date, or who never claimed a rebate, may join by choice. ComEd calls the arrangement a virtual power plant, meaning many household batteries discharging together as though they were one station.
What the company pays
ComEd pays $10 for each kilowatt a battery delivers in the window. The Citizens Utility Board reads the state law as setting a floor of at least $10 for each kilowatt of average discharge, and ComEd's rate matches the floor.
The kilowatt is a season-long average: every unit the battery sent to the grid during the season, divided by every hour of the window, delivered or not. A unit is one kilowatt-hour, the figure your electricity bill counts.
The 2027 season holds 176 of those hours, by our count: 88 weekdays, two hours each. Spread the payment across them and a unit sent out during the window earns about 6 cents.
For a 13.5 kWh battery that can push 5 kW (our arithmetic): emptying 10 units into the grid on all 88 weekdays averages 5 kW across the window, which earns $50 for the season and $250 over the five. The rebate on a battery that size comes to about $4,050.
There is no minimum commitment
How much the battery promises to send is a number the household writes. The agreement records the figure, in the tariff's phrase, "as identified by the Participant", and the tariff adds: "There is no minimum commitment required."
Payment follows what the battery delivers, so a household that delivers little loses the payment and nothing besides. The tariff describes one removal: a customer who tampers with the battery so that it misreports its discharge.
ComEd's claim on those hours ranks first
Before service begins, a household must warrant that it has not already promised those same hours to anyone else, and must end any earlier promise. It must agree to rank ComEd's claim above any other conflicting commitment, to give the company access to the battery and to the data from its inverter, and to leave the battery fixed on the premises for the full five years.
The consumer group's guide calls it opt-in
The Citizens Utility Board published a guide to the new Illinois programmes on 14 September 2026. It tells customers: "Participation is opt-in." The tariff says customers who took the rebate on or after 1 June 2026 "are required to participate". A household reading the guide would not learn about the five summers.
Everyone pays for it
The same June filing revises the charge that recovers the cost. It applies "to all retail customers", and lets ComEd collect what it spends on the rebates and on the incentives attached to them. Households with no battery fund both the cheque and the seasonal payments.
Who decides when your battery empties, you or the company that helped pay for it? For a rebated battery in northern Illinois, a tariff answers that for five summers.
What this means in India
Indian regulators have put their conditions on the connection. Karnataka's commission issued its final rooftop solar rules on 26 August 2026, lifting the ceiling for net metering to 1 MW and dropping a proposal to make storage compulsory, Mercom India reported. Net metering means your meter runs backwards when your roof exports, and you pay for the difference.
Translated to Bengaluru, the Illinois clause would mean that claiming the rooftop subsidy signed a household up to a fixed evening discharge window for five years. Karnataka has declined to compel households even to fit a battery.
What happens next
Customers can begin taking service under the tariff by 1 March 2027 at the latest. On or before 31 December 2028, ComEd must file a report with the Commission's chief clerk giving the number of participants and the effect on supply prices and distribution planning.
Illinois helps pay for your home battery, and in exchange its summer evenings go on the power company's schedule for five years.
What we could not confirm
Did the Commission alter any term of the tariff before it approved the programme on 30 June 2026?
Does a unit sent to the grid during the window still earn the usual net metering credit as well as the $10 payment?
What releases a household from the remaining summers, and what happens when the house is sold?
The document
Rider SDVPP, Scheduled Dispatch Virtual Power Plant Program, tariff sheets 471 to 476, filed with the Illinois Commerce Commission by Commonwealth Edison Company on 1 June 2026 under Illinois Public Act 104-0458, effective 16 July 2026: https://icc.illinois.gov/downloads/public/filing/4/399541.pdf
Sources
- Rider SDVPP and Rider DG Rebate Adjustment, ComEd compliance filing, 1 June 2026: https://icc.illinois.gov/downloads/public/filing/4/399541.pdf
- ComEd, "ComEd Receives Approval to Launch its First Virtual Power Plant Program for Customers in 2027", 30 June 2026: https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/comed-receives-approval-launch-first-120000683.html
- Citizens Utility Board, "Upcoming CRGA Programs", 14 September 2026: https://www.citizensutilityboard.org/blog/2026/09/14/upcoming-crga-programs/
- Utility Dive, "Illinois regulators approve ComEd VPP under new clean energy law", 27 August 2026: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/illinois-approves-commonwealth-edison-vpp-under-new-clean-energy-law/824723/
- Mercom India, "Karnataka to expand net metering to 1 MW, drops mandatory storage proposal", 26 August 2026: https://www.mercomindia.com/karnataka-expand-net-metering-to-1-mw-drops-mandatory-storage-proposal
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