ComEd now powers its real estate portfolio, which includes 54 facilities in northern Illinois, with 100% carbon-free energy from Constellation 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The partnership also incorporates ComEd’s corporate and regional headquarters, reporting centers, business offices, training and special use facilities, and substations.
“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 of ComEd. “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 helps ComEd with clean energy from within the regional electric grid, the majority of which is produced in ComEd’s service territory. The carbon-free energy not only matches ComEd’s total energy usage on an hourly basis but also helps the company support clean energy resources in Illinois.
ComEd’s annual energy use of about 65,000 MWh will be achieved through the clean energy purchase.
ComEd will also purchase the environmental attributes associated with the energy to help power its facilities with carbon-free generation resources.
“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,” said Jim McHugh, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, Constellation. “Importantly, this agreement also affirms the critical role of nuclear energy in enabling the viability of hourly carbon-free energy.”
ComEd plans to electrify 30% of its fleet by 2025 to eliminate 2,000 metric tons of GHG emissions. The company also aims to electrify 50% of its fleet by 2030, which will help 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 to enable a reduction in fuel and maintenance costs and create savings for customers. The company will replace light-duty vehicles (LDVs) with electric vehicles by 2025, and all LDVs will be electric by 2030.
ComEd’s energy efficiency programs have saved customers approximately $7.65 billion on their electric bills. Customers have also saved more than 70 million net MWh of electricity, which is the annual equivalent of reducing $76 billion in carbon emissions from the atmosphere, removing 6 million cars from the road, and powering more than 8 million homes for one year.