{"id":16725,"date":"2017-11-14T14:01:25","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T19:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/energyexchange\/?p=16725"},"modified":"2017-12-27T13:01:54","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T18:01:54","slug":"data-reveals-real-time-electricity-pricing-would-help-nearly-all-comed-customers-save-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/energyexchange\/2017\/11\/14\/data-reveals-real-time-electricity-pricing-would-help-nearly-all-comed-customers-save-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Data reveals real-time electricity pricing would help nearly all ComEd customers save money"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Over the past few years, Illinois has taken great strides to not only modernize its electric grid, but also to provide people and businesses with access to energy data<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In February, the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) approved the release<\/a> of anonymous, aggregate energy-use data on a large scale, broken out in half-hour increments, 24 hours a day. Sensing an opportunity to unlock innovation, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Citizens Utility Board (CUB), Illinois\u2019 utility watchdog, dove into that treasure trove of granular data.<\/p>\n

Specifically, we wanted to see how the customers of Illinois\u2019 largest electric utility, ComEd, would have fared under a \u201creal-time pricing\u201d program in which power prices change hourly. Anonymous data from over 300,000 homes revealed several interesting tidbits that we\u2019re sharing in our new whitepaper, The Costs and Benefits of Real-Time Pricing<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Most importantly, the study shows that real-time prices would have saved 97 percent of\u00a0customers money in 2016 \u2013 even if the customers made no changes to how they use electricity<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[Tweet “Data reveals real-time electricity pricing would help nearly all ComEd customers save money”]<\/p>\n

The study<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2007, ComEd began offering its customers an \u201cHourly Pricing\u201d program, an optional way to pay for electricity in which the wholesale market price fluctuates by the hour (kind of like airline tickets). Elevate Energy, which manages ComEd\u2019s program, says participants have saved more than 15 percent off the supply portions of their bill since Hourly Pricing was launched.<\/p>\n

A relatively small number of ComEd customers have enrolled \u2013 about 17,500 out of over 3 million. Everyone else is still on traditional billing, and we wanted to find out how their bills would have changed with dynamic pricing.\u00a0

Even greater savings are possible for those who choose to change their energy use.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/p>\n

Using 12 months of energy-use data from smart meters, anonymized by zip code, EDF and CUB calculated what the 2016 electricity bills of 300,000 ComEd residential customers would have been under the Hourly Pricing program. The study found:<\/p>\n