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Solar Won't Zero Out Your Illinois Electric Bill — the State's Own Example Shows Why

Ryan Cook•August 5, 2026•Updated Sep 8, 2026

No — solar does not eliminate your electric bill in Illinois. Panels offset the supply half of the bill (the electricity itself), but the delivery half and the fixed monthly charges stay: a ComEd single-family home pays $15.50 plus $3.87 every month before using a kilowatt-hour, an Ameren Illinois home pays $8.55 plus $5.96, and both utilities charge delivery on every kilowatt-hour you pull from the grid. For systems interconnected on or after January 1, 2025, the state's own net metering example spells out which kilowatt-hours you still pay for.

A woman in Edwardsville called me last September, about three weeks after her system was turned on. She wasn't angry, just confused. "The panels are working," she said. "I watched the meter. So why did Ameren still send me a bill for ninety-one dollars?"

Her system was fine. Her expectations weren't. And that gap is on our industry, not on her.

A suburban Illinois home with rooftop solar panels, a utility pole and power lines in the foreground

Your bill has two halves, and solar only reaches one

Every Illinois electric bill splits into supply and delivery.

Supply is the electricity itself — the actual energy you consumed. Delivery is what your utility charges to move it over poles and wires to your house, plus the fixed monthly charges for having an account and a meter at all.

Solar produces electricity. So solar competes with the supply half. It does not compete with the delivery half, because your panels don't own the wires.

The State of Illinois says this out loud, in a place most people never look. On Plug In Illinois, the state's official electricity shopping site, the price-to-compare page carries this line: "You will pay the charges to deliver the electric supply from the transmission system to your home or business regardless of whether you purchase your electric supply from ComEd or an ARES." That sentence is written about switching suppliers, but the principle is identical for solar. The delivery charge follows the wire, not the source.

The floor, in actual dollars

Here's what you're paying before you use anything at all.

A ComEd single-family customer on non-electric heat pays a $15.50 monthly customer charge plus a $3.87 standard metering charge, per ComEd's own delivery charge guide for bills beginning April 2026. That's $19.37 a month, roughly $232 a year, whether your panels have a banner month or sit under three feet of snow.

Ameren Illinois residential customers pay an $8.55 customer charge plus a $5.96 meter charge — $14.51 a month, about $174 a year (2026 DS-1 charges, as listed in CUB's January 2026 guide).

Then there's the per-kilowatt-hour delivery charge on top. ComEd's April 2026 sheet puts the distribution facilities charge at 6.333¢/kWh (plus a 0.128¢ IEDT line — call it about 6.5¢); Ameren's summer distribution delivery charge is 7.811¢/kWh for June through September. For comparison, the supply side this summer runs 10.399¢/kWh for ComEd and 11.326¢/kWh for Ameren, both effective June 1 through September 30, 2026, per Plug In Illinois. Both reset October 1.

Summer 2026 (June 1–Sept 30)	ComEd single-family	Ameren Illinois residential
Fixed charges solar can't touch	$15.50 customer + $3.87 metering = $19.37/mo	$8.55 customer + $5.96 meter = $14.51/mo
Delivery, per kWh pulled from the grid	6.333¢ + 0.128¢ IEDT	7.811¢ (summer)
Supply (Price to Compare) — the part solar offsets	10.399¢	11.326¢ (0–800 kWh)

Look at those pairs for a second. Delivery isn't a rounding error next to supply. In Ameren territory this summer it's roughly two-thirds of what the electricity itself costs. CUB's own framing is that delivery charges "take up about half of your electric bill, more or less." I broke ComEd's side down line by line in what ComEd's delivery charge per kWh is in 2026.

Half your bill is the part solar doesn't reach. That's the honest starting point, and it's the one most quotes skip.

The rule that changed in 2025 — and the state's own example

If you installed solar in Illinois before 2025, your credits worked harder than they do now.

Under full retail rate net metering, the credits you earned for exporting electricity offset supply and delivery. Systems interconnected on or after January 1, 2025 get supply-only net metering instead.

The Illinois Power Agency's participant FAQ explains it plainly: "With supply-only net metering, electric delivery charges are no longer included in net metering. This means that customers will pay delivery charges for the entire amount of electricity that they pull from the grid, regardless of how much electricity they send back to the grid."

Then the agency works an example, which I've started using in every consultation because it lands better than anything I've written myself. A home sends 400 kWh to the grid and pulls 500 kWh from it. Net usage is 100 kWh.

Supply and transmission charges: on 100 kWh
Delivery charges: on the full 500 kWh

The agency adds one more line that people miss: "Your electric bill will also include non-volumetric (not based on kWh used) customer charges and fees."

The export credit is real, and it's meaningful on the supply side. But every kilowatt-hour you pull from the grid at night still carries its delivery charge, even if you sent more than that back at noon.

Were you grandfathered?

Some Illinois homeowners are still on the old, better arrangement, and a fair number don't know it.

Per the IPA, customers already receiving full retail rate net metering keep it "for the life of their system" — unless the project is modified enough to require a new interconnection agreement in ComEd territory, or it doubles nameplate capacity in Ameren territory. The qualifying group is residential and small commercial customers interconnected before January 1, 2025 who did not request a Distributed Generation Rebate from the utility.

One detail I like, because it protects people: if you buy out a leased or PPA system that was already on full retail rate net metering, the system keeps that treatment even though the owner changed.

If you bought a house with existing panels, this is worth a phone call to your utility. It's the difference between credits that offset half your bill and credits that offset a quarter of it.

What this actually means for your decision

None of this is an argument against solar. It's an argument against the wrong comparison.

The wrong comparison is your monthly solar cost against your entire old bill. The right one is your monthly solar cost against the supply portion of your old bill, with delivery and fixed charges sitting on both sides of the ledger unchanged.

Pull out a recent bill. Find the delivery section. Add the customer charge and meter charge. That subtotal is your floor — it's what you'll pay in a hypothetical month where your panels covered every kilowatt-hour you used. Whatever sits above that floor is the part worth talking about.

For most of the Ameren-territory homeowners I sit with in Belleville, Edwardsville, and around Peoria, that supply portion is still the larger share of a painful summer bill, and rates on that side have moved a long way in five years. That's a real problem worth solving. It's just not the same as "no more electric bill."

One more wrinkle for downstate: if you're served by a rural electric cooperative or a municipal utility rather than Ameren or ComEd, the IPA notes those utilities "may limit access to net metering or may offer a different approach for crediting customers." Don't assume the ComEd and Ameren rules apply to you. Ask your co-op before you sign anything.

The version I'd want told to me

I've had customers save real money and I've had customers whose first post-install bill annoyed them because nobody set the expectation. The second outcome is avoidable and it's entirely a sales problem.

Here's the sentence I use now: solar can take a serious bite out of the supply half of your bill, and on a lease that can start as low as $0.10/kWh — though that's an estimate until we've looked at your actual usage. The delivery half and the fixed charges stay. Every projection I put in front of you is an estimate. The delivery charge isn't an estimate, though. It's a floor, and you should know where yours sits before you decide anything.

Want me to read your actual bill and show you which half is which? Run the numbers on our solar savings calculator, or call me directly at (618) 217-2001 and we'll go through it line by line. You can also get in touch here.

Sources

Net Metering Changes in Illinois — FAQs for Participants — Illinois Power Agency, 2024 (400/500 kWh example, grandfathering)
ComEd Price to Compare — Plug In Illinois, effective June 1, 2026
Ameren Illinois Price to Compare — Plug In Illinois, June 1–Sept 30, 2026
ComEd Guide to Billed Delivery Service Charges — ComEd, bills beginning April 2026
CUB's report on 2026 electric rates — Citizens Utility Board, Jan. 19, 2026 (Ameren fixed and delivery charges)

Rate figures are current as of the dates shown and change on a utility schedule — check your own bill for the charges that apply to you.

Frequently Asked Questions

No, and anyone who tells you otherwise is setting you up to be disappointed. Solar offsets the supply side of your Illinois bill — the electricity itself — but it doesn't touch the delivery side, and it doesn't touch the fixed monthly charges. If you're a ComEd single-family customer, you're paying a $15.50 monthly customer charge plus a $3.87 standard metering charge before you use a single kilowatt-hour, per ComEd's delivery charge guide for bills from April 2026. Ameren Illinois customers pay $8.55 plus a $5.96 meter charge. Those numbers don't move no matter how much your panels produce. On top of that, you pay a per-kilowatt-hour delivery charge on everything you pull from the grid. A well-sized system can take a big bite out of the supply portion, and for a lot of my customers that's the majority of what they were paying. But the bill keeps arriving. Plan on it.

Supply-only net metering is the credit system that applies to Illinois solar systems interconnected on or after January 1, 2025. Under the old full retail rate version, the credits you earned for exported electricity offset both the supply and the delivery portions of your bill. Now they only offset supply and transmission. The Illinois Power Agency spells it out: with supply-only net metering, 'electric delivery charges are no longer included in net metering,' which means 'customers will pay delivery charges for the entire amount of electricity that they pull from the grid, regardless of how much electricity they send back to the grid.' The agency's own example uses a home that sends 400 kWh to the grid and pulls 500 kWh from it. You'd pay supply and transmission on the net 100 kWh — but delivery on the full 500. That gap is the single most misunderstood thing about Illinois solar right now.

Yes. You stay a ComEd or Ameren Illinois customer, you keep your meter, and you keep getting a monthly bill. What changes is what's on it. The supply line shrinks — sometimes dramatically — while the delivery line and the fixed charges stay roughly where they were. I tell people to look at their current bill and find the delivery section before they ever look at a solar quote, because that's the floor. CUB puts delivery at about half of a typical Illinois electric bill, more or less. If your bill is $220 and roughly half of that is delivery and fixed charges, then the honest conversation is about the other half, not the whole $220. That framing costs me a sale now and then. It also means nobody I've worked with has been blindsided by their first post-install bill, which matters more.

Yes, and it's worth knowing whether you're one of them. The Illinois Power Agency states that customers already receiving full retail rate net metering 'will continue to receive full retail rate net metering for the life of their system,' unless the project is modified so extensively that it needs a new interconnection agreement in ComEd territory, or it doubles the nameplate capacity in Ameren territory. Residential and small commercial customers interconnected to ComEd or Ameren before January 1, 2025, who did not request a Distributed Generation Rebate from the utility, keep that treatment. There's also a detail that surprises people: if you buy out a leased or PPA system that was already on full retail rate net metering, the system keeps it even though ownership changed. If you're not sure which side of the line you're on, call your utility and ask directly — it changes the math significantly.

It doesn't. Delivery charges and fixed monthly charges are between you and your utility, and no financing arrangement changes that. What a lease changes is the shape of the other half. Instead of a large upfront purchase, you're paying a monthly amount for the electricity the system produces — as low as $0.10/kWh, though that's an estimate until we've looked at your actual usage and roof. So a leased customer's monthly picture is typically a lease payment plus a reduced utility bill that still carries delivery and fixed charges. I walk people through both lines side by side, because comparing a lease payment against your entire old bill is the wrong comparison and it leads to bad decisions. Also worth noting: if you're in a rural electric cooperative or a municipal utility territory, the net metering rules can differ entirely from ComEd and Ameren.