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Your Ameren Illinois Bill Explained (2026): Every Line, the Real Price Per kWh, and What Resets October 1
guide13 min read

Your Ameren Illinois Bill Explained (2026): Every Line, the Real Price Per kWh, and What Resets October 1

Ryan Cook•

An Ameren Illinois residential electric bill is three sections stacked on one page: Electric Delivery, Electric Supply, and Taxes and Other Mandated Charges. The number everybody quotes, the 11.326¢ per kWh summer supply price, lives in the middle section only. Delivery adds another 7.811¢ per kWh in summer plus $14.51 a month in fixed charges before you use anything, and the bottom section tacks on roughly a penny and a half more per kWh in riders and taxes. That's why an "11-cent rate" turns into a July bill that works out to an estimated 19¢ per kWh before the fixed charges and riders are counted, and over 20¢ once they are.

I read these bills for a living. Customers in Springfield, Belleville, and Peoria hand me the same folded statement with the same question: which of these numbers is the actual rate? The honest answer is that there isn't one. There are about fifteen lines, and this post walks through each of them using Ameren's own tariff sheets, its published sample bill, and the ICC's Price to Compare page. The ComEd version of this breakdown went up earlier this month; this is the Ameren half of the state.

Key facts on a 2026 Ameren Illinois bill

Line 2026 figure Where it applies
Supply Price to Compare 11.326¢/kWh June 1 – Sept 30, 2026, first 800 kWh
Supply, last non-summer period 8.769¢/kWh (7.850¢ over 800 kWh) Jan – May 2026 bills
Supply, Oct – Dec 2025 8.402¢/kWh (7.483¢ over 800 kWh) For reference until the Oct 2026 price posts
Transmission Service Charge (inside the PTC) 2.765¢/kWh Effective June 2026
Supply Cost Adjustment (inside the PTC) 0.308¢/kWh All rate zones
Distribution Delivery Charge, summer 7.811¢/kWh June – Sept billing periods, 2026
Distribution Delivery Charge, non-summer 4.572¢/kWh first 800 kWh, 2.427¢ above Oct – May billing periods, 2026
Customer Charge $7.42 tariff base; CUB's January 2026 guide lists the printed charge at $8.55 Every month
Meter Charge $5.96 Every month
EDT Cost Recovery 0.12567¢/kWh Every kWh, 2026
Next delivery step $8.50 customer, $6.36 meter, 8.009¢ summer January 2027 bills

Sources for each figure are listed at the end. Everything marked as a bill total or an all-in rate is an estimate for a typical home; your usage and your tax lines will move it.

Section one: Electric Delivery

This is Ameren's own money. The Illinois Commerce Commission sets these rates in a multi-year plan and Ameren earns its regulated return here, which is the plain reason delivery only moves one direction. On the bill it's headed "DS-1 Residential Delivery Service."

Customer Charge. A flat monthly fee for having an account. The 2026 tariff base is $7.42, and Ameren's rate appendix adds a 52-cent "uncollectible recovered in base rates" line to every bill. CUB's January 2026 power-bill guide lists the printed customer charge at $8.55, which is the number I see on customer statements, so that's the one to budget with. The tariff already shows $8.50 as the base for 2027.

Meter Charge. $5.96 a month in 2026 for the meter itself, up from $5.32 last year, and scheduled for $6.36 in 2027. Together with the customer charge, that's the $14.51 a month you pay before your first kilowatt-hour. Roughly $174 a year, and no efficiency project or supplier switch touches it.

Distribution Delivery Charge. The per-kWh piece and the one that matters. Ameren splits it by season:

Billing period 2026 rate 2027 rate (already approved)
Summer (June – Sept) 7.811¢/kWh 8.009¢/kWh
Non-summer, first 800 kWh 4.572¢/kWh 4.687¢/kWh
Non-summer, over 800 kWh 2.427¢/kWh 2.488¢/kWh

The summer number is the one that surprises people. In July, the delivery line alone on 1,000 kWh is $78.11. In November, the same 1,000 kWh costs $36.58 for the first 800 plus $4.85 for the last 200, about $41 total. The 800-kWh break has been in Ameren's residential tariff for years: the block of winter usage above 800 kWh gets a lower per-kWh rate.

Percentage adjustments. Below the three main lines you'll see two riders expressed as a percentage of the delivery subtotal rather than a per-kWh rate. On Ameren's published sample bill (March 2025), the "Delivery Service Cost Adjustment" added 12.77% and the "Electric Deferred Income Tax Adjustment" subtracted 2.19%. Those percentages are reset each year through the reconciliation process, and they're why the delivery total on your bill is a bit higher than the tariff arithmetic alone. In December 2025 the ICC trimmed Ameren's $59.6 million reconciliation request by $11.2 million, to roughly $48.4 million (Docket 25-0382); the approved balance is recovered through this adjustment factor.

My take: delivery is where the quiet growth lives. Supply gets the headlines every June, but the tariff table above shows delivery stepping up again in January no matter what the wholesale market does.

Section two: Electric Supply

This is the electricity itself, headed "BGS-1 Basic Generation Service" if you buy from Ameren. Ameren passes supply through at cost; the ICC's Plug In Illinois site puts it as "without any mark-up or profit," and Ameren's own rates page says the charges are "passed through, dollar-for-dollar." Four lines make it up:

  • Purchased Electricity, 0–800 kWh (and a second line for usage over 800 in non-summer months). This is the raw energy price. For summer 2026 the ICC lists it at 8.2¢ per kWh.
  • Supply Cost Adjustment. 0.308¢ per kWh in every rate zone, covering procurement, working capital, and uncollectible costs on the supply side.
  • Transmission Service Charge. 2.765¢ per kWh effective June 2026, the cost of the high-voltage lines that carry power from plants to Ameren's local system.
  • Purchased Electricity Adjustment. A small monthly true-up that swings positive or negative. It was minus 0.200¢ in September 2026. This is the one line that changes every single month, and it's why two bills at the same usage never match to the penny.

Add the first three together and you get the Price to Compare of 11.326¢ per kWh for June 1 through September 30, 2026, on the first 800 kWh. I wrote a full explainer on how the Price to Compare works if you want the mechanics. The short version is that this is the only number an alternative supplier or a town aggregation program has to beat, and as of this month, 245 of 260 priced town deals in Ameren territory don't beat it.

Here's the recent history from the ICC's own table, because the seasonal swing is the thing to plan around:

Period Supply price, first 800 kWh
Summer 2024 (June – Sept) 8.136¢
Jan – May 2025 8.277¢
Summer 2025 12.180¢
Oct – Dec 2025 8.402¢
Jan – May 2026 8.769¢
Summer 2026 11.326¢

The bill itself prints the current price in a box near the end of the statement, under "Details From Your Electric Supplier," labeled "Electric Supply Price to Compare," so you can check it without going to the ICC site.

Section three: Taxes and Other Mandated Charges

This is the section nobody reads, so here's what's in it. Using Ameren's published sample bill for a 583-kWh non-summer month, the lines were:

  • Customer Generation Charge (a flat 16 cents)
  • Clean Energy Assistance Charge, 0.189¢/kWh
  • Coal to Solar and Energy Storage Charge, 0.008¢/kWh
  • Renewable Energy Adjustment, 0.458¢/kWh
  • EDT Cost Recovery, 0.1255¢/kWh in 2025 (0.12567¢ in 2026 per the tariff)
  • Electric Environmental Adjustment, 0.016¢/kWh
  • Energy Efficiency Programs Charge, 0.559¢/kWh
  • Energy Transition Assistance Charge, 0.072¢/kWh
  • Utility-Owned Solar and Storage Adjustment, 0.008¢/kWh
  • Illinois State Electricity Excise Tax

That sample bill's total for the section was $10.45 on 583 kWh, or about 1.8¢ per kWh. Most of these fund state programs created by Illinois energy legislation (the bill itself footnotes the 2021 state energy law), and the Renewable Energy Adjustment is the line that pays for Illinois Shines. Individually they're pennies. Together they add roughly $15 to $20 on a 1,000-kWh summer bill. Your municipality may add a local utility tax on top, which is why two neighbors in different towns see different totals.

About that "Rate Zone" line

At the top of the electric detail you'll see "Electric Service Residential Billing Detail – Rate Zone I," II, or III. People ask me if they're in an expensive zone. You're not.

The zones are the footprints of the three utilities that merged into Ameren Illinois on October 1, 2010: Rate Zone I is the former Central Illinois Public Service area, Rate Zone II the former Central Illinois Light Company area around Peoria, and Rate Zone III the former Illinois Power territory that includes Decatur and Champaign. Ameren's tariff General Statement says everything in the electric schedule "shall be deemed to be applicable for all three Rate Zones unless specifically noted." The current residential delivery appendix carries one set of figures, and the older informational sheets that still printed three zone columns showed identical numbers in each. The label lingers for legacy riders and record-keeping. If you and a relative across a county line compare bills and the per-kWh lines differ, the reason is season or usage tier, not zone.

A worked example: 1,000 kWh in August 2026

Take a Decatur home that used 1,000 kWh in a summer billing period. Rounded, and before the percentage riders:

  • Customer and meter charges: $14.51
  • Distribution delivery, 1,000 kWh × 7.811¢: $78.11
  • Supply, 1,000 kWh × 11.326¢: $113.26
  • Purchased Electricity Adjustment, August at minus 0.144¢: about −$1.44
  • Taxes and other riders at roughly 1.8¢/kWh: about $18

That lands near $222, or an estimated 22¢ per kWh once the fixed charges are spread across the usage. Move the same home to a 1,000-kWh November and the delivery line falls to about $41, the supply line to whatever the October price turns out to be, and the bill drops into the $150 range even at the same usage. The Ameren rates page keeps the current numbers for both seasons, and the annual all-in estimate there is about 15.5¢ per kWh.

What changes October 1, and what changes in January

Two clocks run on this bill, and they don't line up.

October 1 resets the supply price. In each of the last two years Ameren's non-summer price came in well below summer; in 2022 and 2023 it went the other way, so neither the size nor the direction of the reset is automatic. The ICC hadn't posted the October 2026 figure as of September 16; when it appears, I'll update the October rate post and the rates page the same week. Delivery also switches to the non-summer 4.572¢ schedule with October billing periods.

January 2027 is when delivery steps up. The tariff's 2027 column is already approved: $8.50 customer charge, $6.36 meter charge, 8.009¢ summer and 4.687¢ non-summer distribution. That's roughly a 2.5% increase on the per-kWh delivery lines and about $1.48 a month more in fixed charges. Every homeowner I talk to assumes the increases come in one lump. They don't. Supply moves in June and October; delivery moves in January.

What solar replaces on this bill, and what it doesn't

Panels make electricity, so they replace the supply section first. Every kilowatt-hour your roof produces and your house uses at that moment never crosses the meter, which means it carries no supply charge and no distribution delivery charge either. What you still pay Ameren is the $14.51 in fixed charges, the small flat riders, and the delivery and supply on whatever you import at night.

For systems connected since January 1, 2025, Illinois uses supply-only net metering. Credits for the power you export midday offset the supply lines but not delivery. That's why I push customers to look at their summer delivery line, the 7.811¢, and not just the 11.326¢. Self-consumed solar avoids both; exported solar only earns back one.

With a $0-down lease, the supply half of the bill becomes a predictable rate as low as $0.10 per kWh, with the full 25-year rate schedule set in the contract before you sign, and the battery included so more of your own production gets used in the house instead of exported. Whether that beats your current bill depends on your roof and your usage. Run the savings calculator with a real bill in hand, or send me the PDF and I'll read it line by line with you. Every figure I give you is an estimate until it's your actual bill.

Call (618) 217-2001 or get in touch here. Bring the bill.

Sources

Frequently Asked Questions

Ameren Illinois' supply price is 11.326¢ per kWh from June 1 through September 30, 2026, on the first 800 kWh each month, according to the Illinois Commerce Commission's Price to Compare page. That figure is only the supply half of the bill. Delivery adds 7.811¢ per kWh in summer months, or 4.572¢ on the first 800 kWh from October through May, plus roughly $14.51 a month in fixed customer and meter charges. Taxes and program riders sit on top of both halves. Put together, a typical home pays an estimated 19¢ per kWh in summer before fixed charges and riders, over 20¢ with them, and about 15.5¢ averaged across the year. The supply price resets October 1, 2026, and the new non-summer figure had not been posted as of mid-September. Last winter's supply price was 8.769¢ from January through May 2026, and 8.402¢ from October through December 2025.
The Distribution Delivery Charge is the per-kWh fee Ameren Illinois collects for moving electricity across its poles, wires, and transformers to your house. For 2026 the residential tariff sets it at 7.811¢ per kWh in summer billing months, 4.572¢ per kWh on the first 800 kWh in non-summer months, and 2.427¢ on every non-summer kWh above 800. Those figures come from Ameren's Rate PBR-R appendix, the sheet the Illinois Commerce Commission approved in August 2025. They are already scheduled to rise again in 2027: 8.009¢ summer, 4.687¢ non-summer under 800 kWh, and 2.488¢ above. Delivery is regulated, not shopped, so switching to an alternative supplier or a town aggregation deal never touches it. The only ways to shrink the per-kWh delivery line are to pull fewer kilowatt-hours from the grid or make some of your own.
The rate zone printed at the top of your electric billing detail tells you which of the three old utilities served your address before they merged into Ameren Illinois on October 1, 2010. Rate Zone I is the former Central Illinois Public Service territory, Rate Zone II the former Central Illinois Light Company area around Peoria, and Rate Zone III the former Illinois Power footprint across places like Decatur and Champaign. For a residential customer today, the zone label does not change the price. Ameren's tariff states that its rates and charges apply to all three Rate Zones unless specifically noted, and the current delivery appendix publishes a single set of residential figures for the customer charge, meter charge, and distribution delivery charge. The label survives because some older riders and historical adjustments were tracked separately by zone. It is worth knowing which zone you are in only so you can find the right line when comparing bills with a neighbor across a county line.
The supply half should drop on October 1, 2026, but the delivery half does not move until January. In each of the last two years Ameren's non-summer supply price came in well below the summer price, though it went the other way in 2022 and 2023. Last year it went from 12.180¢ in summer 2025 to 8.402¢ for October through December, then 8.769¢ from January through May 2026. The October 2026 figure had not been posted on the Illinois Commerce Commission's Price to Compare page as of September 16. My estimate is that it lands somewhere near last winter's numbers, but that is an estimate, not a published rate. Delivery does not follow the seasons the same way. The non-summer distribution rate of 4.572¢ per kWh applies from October, but the fixed charges continue every month, and the next scheduled delivery increase takes effect with January 2027 bills under the tariff's 2027 column.

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Springfield, ILPeoria, ILChampaign, ILDecatur, ILBelleville, ILEdwardsville, ILCarbondale, ILQuincy, IL

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