Rep. Kimberly Du Buclet, D-Chicago, joined consumer advocates to issue a public warning about alternative electric and gas supplier sales tactics and prices. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Maggie Dougherty)
Article Summary
- Lawmakers are looking to further regulate alternative retail energy suppliers, tying the rates they can charge for energy to what utilities can charge.
- Consumer advocates said the retail suppliers can often be predatory in nature, locking consumers into prices that are much higher than what the utility charges.
- Another bill seeks to prohibit electric utilities from charging customers for expenses related to the utility’s advertising, insurance, legal costs and trade association dues
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
CHICAGO — When Illinoisians look to power their homes, they are faced with what can be an intimidating landscape of energy providers. That includes the major energy utilities — Commonwealth Edison, Ameren Illinois, Nicor Gas and Peoples Gas — but also smaller, alternative suppliers.
Lawmakers are looking to further regulate the latter, charging that a 2019 law aimed at reigning in predatory sales tactics is falling short.
Utilities are not allowed to mark up the supply price of energy they deliver, instead making their money by charging customers for energy delivery. State regulators also heavily scrutinize those expenditures in a formal review process.
But Illinois also allows consumers to buy their energy from other less-regulated third-party companies known as alternative retail energy suppliers.
Those alternative suppliers are not restrained by the same pricing limitations as the utilities. Rep. Kimberly Du Buclet, D-Chicago, said a bill she’s sponsoring aims to change that. House Bill 4313 would cap excessive pricing, prohibiting alternative suppliers from charging residential and small commercial customers more than 25% above utility supply prices.
Du Buclet said the issue of alternate suppliers came onto her radar particularly via complaints from seniors, who may be more at risk of signing up from aggressive door-to-door or telemarketing campaigns.
“For far too long, many consumers have believed that they were signing up for savings only to find themselves locked into higher rates, confusing terms (and) automatic renewals that they clearly did not understand or agree to,” Du Buclet said. “This is not what consumer choice should look like.”
Bills doubled or tripled
Retail suppliers can sometimes charge double or triple the utility rate, which might mean paying $40-$200 more per month, depending on energy usage.
A 2025 analysis of annual state reports conducted by the Citizens Utility Board, a consumer watchdog group, found that residential customers of ComEd and Ameren had lost a combined total of more than $2 billion in business to alternative electricity suppliers since 2015.
There are over 50 registered electric suppliers in the ComEd service territory alone, according to CUB Director of Governmental Affairs Bryan McDaniel.
The bill would require alternate suppliers to report rates and how pricing compares to utility rates, while also prohibiting suppliers from automatically renewing customers into higher cost contracts without clear written consent and explanation of those costs.
It also targets aggressive sales tactics by prohibiting commission-based compensation for sales agents.
“Salespeople should not be rewarded simply for closing a deal, regardless of whether that deal is actually in the consumer’s best interest,” Du Buclet said. “If a company is offering a strong product at a fair price, it should be able to compete honestly; it should not have to rely on high pressure sales tactics or misleading pitches to get customers to sign on.”
Senior, green consumers at risk
Philippe Largent, state director of AARP Illinois, said seniors are often hit hardest by rising utility costs.
“A surprise increase in an energy bill doesn’t just cause frustration, it forces hard choices, like cutting back on groceries, delaying medications,” Largent said. “Energy choices should never come with a financial risk.”
Some alternate suppliers offer high-priced plans that are advertised as “green” or environmentally friendly. Customers might be willing to pay more to use renewable energy sources, but McDaniel said the claims are often misleading.
Though they may be marketed as “green,” he said, the companies often don’t send renewably sourced energy to the consumer’s home. They may put energy from renewables on the grid somewhere, or they may just be purchasing renewable energy certificates, essentially an investment in renewable sources.
“They like to try to charge a premium for that clean energy, when a lot of times clean energy ought to be cheaper,” McDaniel said. “So, we just tell people, you know, really look closely.”
Du Buclet said while lawmakers passed the Home Energy Affordability and Transparency Act, or HEAT Act, in 2019, there are still gaps to be filled regarding alternative suppliers.
“At its core, this bill is about accountability,” Du Buclet said. “It’s about saying that in Illinois, consumer choice must be real, consumer choice must be informed, and consumer choice must be fair.”
Company expenses
Another new bill called the Utility Transparency Act would prevent utility companies charging customers for expenses related to the utility’s advertising, insurance, legal costs and trade association dues. Connecticut, Colorado and Maine have passed similar laws.
Under Illinois law, utilities are currently allowed to charge customers for those costs.
“The Utility Transparency Act is commonsense legislation that would end the practice of utilities making consumers pay for a long list of expenses that should otherwise be paid for by shareholders,” said State Rep. Theresa Mah, D-Chicago, at a February news conference announcing the bill.
“We are in an affordability crisis, and the last thing that any of my constituents need is to pay higher utility bills for expenses that simply advance the agendas of Illinois utilities and increase their political power,” Mah, who is sponsoring the bill in the House, said.
State Sen. Suzy Glowiak Hilton, D-Western Springs, who is sponsoring the bill in the Senate, said her constituents have told her their bills have gotten unreasonably expensive.
“What we should be doing is delivering energy to homes and businesses, not asking people to pay for extra things that don’t do that,” she said at the same news conference.
The Citizens Utility Board estimated the bill could, in an average year, save Illinois ratepayers $40 million based on utility rate-hike cases from 2023 to 2025.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
