Did the 2020 derecho start ComEd's hardening program?

No. The push predates it, going back to the smart-grid work authorized under a 2011 state law. Big storms like that derecho tend to speed up the spending and sharpen the public argument, not begin it.

Will my street get its wires buried?

Probably not most streets. Undergrounding is targeted at circuits with the worst outage records, so whether yours qualifies depends on how often it has failed. It is better to ask ComEd about your specific circuit than to assume.

Does hardening make my bill cheaper?

No, it tends to raise the delivery charge in the near term. The aim is fewer and shorter outages over time, not a lower bill. Whether that trade is worth it is exactly what the ICC cases argue about.

Who decides how much ComEd can spend on this?

The Illinois Commerce Commission, through its review of ComEd's multi-year grid plan. Consumer advocates and the attorney general weigh in, and the Commission can and does cut the request.

After the derecho, ComEd talks less and buries more

I.What burying the line actually buys

Hardening is not one project. It is a bundle: selective undergrounding (moving the worst-performing overhead circuits below the street), stronger and taller poles, and a larger vegetation-management budget, which is the plain name for tree trimming. On the Northwest Side and in the older bungalow belt, where silver maple and ash crowd the alley lines, that trimming does a lot of the quiet work.

Undergrounding sounds like the obvious cure, and for some circuits it is. It is also expensive, slow, and not free of trouble: buried cable is harder to inspect, faults take longer to find, and low-lying ground near the river and the lake can flood a vault. ComEd has leaned more on targeted trimming and sturdier poles than on wholesale burial, and honestly, for a system this size, no utility undergrounds its way out of storms quickly.

II.Who pays, and how that fight works

The spending shows up in ComEd's delivery charge through what regulators call rate base, the pile of approved investment the utility is allowed to earn a return on. Under the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, the 2021 state law usually shortened to CEJA, ComEd stopped setting rates by an automatic formula and now files a multi-year grid plan that the Illinois Commerce Commission reviews line by line.

That review has teeth. In late 2023 the Commission rejected much of ComEd's first grid plan and sent it back, and a revised plan was approved the following year, at a lower number than the company first asked for. The recurring argument is whether each hardening dollar is prudent and belongs in rate base, because whatever lands there, you help repay over years.

III.The players, from your alley to PJM

ComEd delivers power in northern Illinois; it does not set the wholesale price of the electricity itself. That market is run by PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator that keeps supply and demand balanced across Illinois and about a dozen other states and runs the auction that pays power plants to promise they will be available. Hardening is a distribution question, closer to your alley than to PJM.

On the regulatory side, the Illinois Commerce Commission approves what ComEd may spend and recover. Consumer groups such as the Citizens Utility Board and the state attorney general's office regularly intervene in those cases to push the number down. When you read that a rate request was cut, that back-and-forth is usually why.

IV.Worth watching this month

1. ComEd files reliability and storm-restoration data with the Illinois Commerce Commission on a regular cycle, and those reports are the clearest public read on whether hardening is actually lowering outage minutes.

2. Watch the ICC eDocket for any reconciliation or grid-plan update proceeding, where the gap between what ComEd spent and what it was allowed to recover gets settled.

3. PJM's most recent capacity auction cleared at sharply higher prices, which moves the supply side of your bill more than hardening does, so the next set of results is worth a look.

4. As the spring storm season approaches, the National Weather Service severe-weather outlooks are a routine but genuine signal of derecho risk on the flat prairie west of the lake.

5. Any ComEd notice of specific circuits slated for undergrounding tells you, concretely, whether your own neighborhood is on the list.

After the derecho, ComEd talks less and buries more

I.What burying the line actually buys

II.Who pays, and how that fight works

III.The players, from your alley to PJM

IV.Worth watching this month

Questions readers have asked

Sources of record