ComEd Energy Efficiency Program pays small business owners over $60 million in incentives to make energy-saving upgrades

CHICAGO (May 26, 2021) – Over 8,300 small business owners across northern Illinois saved more than $23 million on their electric bills since the beginning of the pandemic.

By participating in the ComEd Energy Efficiency Program, the businesses avoided 255 million kilowatt hours (kWh) in energy use or the equivalent to reducing more than 124,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Small public facilities and small private businesses received more than $60 million in incentives through the program to make energy efficiency upgrades to their facilities.

"Locally owned businesses are the backbone of our communities, and for many of them, the restrictions and closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic have made it harder to make ends meet," said Erica Borggren, ComEd vice president of customer solutions. "That's why it was crucial for ComEd to provide small business owners the resources they needed as early as possible, in order to make energy-saving changes that translate to more money for their bottom line and help them stay afloat as the nation shut down."   

Sneaker Cleaners, a specialty shoe repair and customization shop on Chicago's South Side, and Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, Ill. both experienced hardships at the onset of the pandemic. By participating in the Energy Efficiency Program, they received energy-efficient LED upgrades to improve their operations and service for their patrons during the pandemic.

"We were really struggling to open with COVID-19 and were affected by the riots as well," said Brandon Smith, owner of Sneaker Cleaners. "Our lights went out and stopped working actually – we had electricity, but my lights just stopped working. That made it all the more important to get the [lighting] job to speed up; they did a good job."

After learning about the ComEd Energy Efficiency Program from his father, who is also a small business owner, Smith took advantage of a small business offering that will help him save about $974 per year on his electric bill by saving about 10,800 kWh.

Calvary Memorial Church, a nondenominational church, needed to improve the lighting in the 30-plus-foot-ceilings for employees and members of the congregation tuning in to their services via webcast. The upgrades will help the church save more than $10,400 per year in energy costs or about 116,500 kWh.

"With the church, revenues are unpredictable, so when it was explained to us how this works – it's a no-brainer," said Roger Glass, building engineer of Calvary Memorial Church. "The Service Provider came into the building, we did site surveys, had questions, did counts, and had the entire building switched over to LEDs. The money that we're going to spend upfront, we're going to save within a year's time."

The ComEd Energy Efficiency Program small-business offerings are one of the ways the energy company has supported this important segment of our communities during the pandemic. Last year, ComEd also established the Small-Business Assistance program, which distributed a total of nearly $2 million in one-time grants to help more than 2,000 small businesses with past-due balances.

To learn more about how these small businesses received energy-saving solutions, click here. For more information on the small business offering, visit ComEd.com/SmallBiz.