May 2021
Member Spotlight
In 2021, SECC will be recognizing a member each month, providing an organizational profile and highlighting the member's accomplishments and output in the smart energy space.
About the Citizens Utility Board
The Citizens Utility Board (CUB) is one of the largest and most successful state-based consumer advocacy organizations in the country. Created in 1983 to represent the interests of residential and small business utility ratepayers in Illinois, CUB employs a multi-faced strategy, including grassroots organizing that engages consumers on the local level through events and online advocacy; working to develop new markets and business models for distributed energy resources and the reduction of GHG emissions; and policy leadership through collaboration, partnership and strategic advocacy at the state and national levels.
Grid Modernization in Illinois
In 2011, an Illinois law was passed opening the door for Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) and Ameren Illinois to install digital advanced meters in millions of homes throughout the state. In the subsequent years, CUB has pressed utilities and regulators to ensure that the benefits of these upgrades were shared with customers.
Grassroots Consumer Education
As options for bringing clean energy to consumers’ homes multiply, consumer education and advocacy become ever more important. People turn to CUB as a trusted source of information on these matters, and CUB’s staff responds to individuals and groups with a level of care and attention that few organizations are equipped to achieve. Meanwhile, CUB’s outreach team proactively seeks opportunities to meet consumers in their communities, holding an average of 500 in-person events per year at which they provide information about smart energy options to thousands of people. Using sophisticated data-collection and reporting tools, outreach staff can also identify consumers who may be interested in signing a clean energy petition or taking advantage of an existing clean energy program.
Solarize Chicagoland
In 2019, CUB’s outreach staff identified a need for more targeted rooftop solar education in the Chicago area and joined with the Midwest Renewable Energy Association and several county governments to start the area’s first Solarize program. After convening a selection committee to vet proposals and choose an installer, CUB’s outreach team blanketed the area with over 65 informational sessions, often in partnership with local organizations, reaching over 1,100 consumers in person and resulting in the installation of 135 solar arrays. Collectively, participants saved an estimated $98,300 in electric bills in the first year alone.
Data Access
In 2017, the Illinois Commerce Commission finalized the Open Data Access Framework developed by CUB in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund. This set of guidelines dictates what data should be easily available to consumers and third parties and how to ensure customer privacy is protected. As a result of the framework and consumer access to their own smart meter data, electricity customers with smart meters (most Illinois consumers) can more easily tap into money-saving benefits, such as dynamic pricing programs, distributed generation and expanded energy efficiency opportunities.
Big Energy Data
Access to account-level energy usage data empowers individual consumers to save money and shrink their carbon footprint. And with third parties like CUB, access to such data can do even more. Illinois’ data access framework, while protecting the privacy of customers, makes interval energy usage data available by time and location, in half-hour increments, daily, over a series of years and by local zip codes.
These datasets have fueled numerous papers by CUB’s research department, including one analysis that found in a test year 97 percent of ComEd customers could have saved money on a utility real-time pricing program, without changing behavior. Compared to the flat rate that most consumers pay now, the real-time pricing model showed an average annual savings of $86.63 for ComEd customers.
In recent years, CUB’s data team has also shown how electric vehicles could help control power grid costs and has raised the concern that low-income households pay more than their fair share for electricity.
