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Behind on Your Ameren or ComEd Bill? The Shut-Off Season Actually Starts in September

Ryan Cook•August 19, 2026•Updated Sep 2, 2026

The biggest electric bills of the year are hitting mailboxes right now. June 1 raised supply rates to 11.326 cents per kWh on Ameren Illinois and 10.399 cents on ComEd, July and August cooling ran through them at full price, and the past-due notices that follow a hot summer are starting to go out.

Here's the part almost nobody explains: Illinois has strong shut-off protections, but they're seasonal — and the two seasons don't touch. The heat rule protects you on 95-degree days. The winter rule starts December 1. The stretch in between, roughly September through November, is when Illinois utilities actually disconnect people.

If you're behind, or you know someone who is, the rules below are worth ten minutes. They come from one place: the Illinois Commerce Commission's consumer rules, 83 Ill. Adm. Code Part 280. Utilities follow these because they have to, not as a courtesy.

The 10-day notice — and its 45-day shelf life

A utility can't disconnect you out of nowhere. Part 280.130 requires a written notice, sent by U.S. Mail or hand-delivered, and service can't be cut until at least 10 days after that notice goes out. The notice has to say why and how to fix it.

The trap is that the notice stays effective for 45 days. People get a notice, nothing happens for three weeks, and they assume it blew over. It didn't. The utility can act any time inside that window.

There are timing limits too. No disconnections after 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, after noon on Friday for residential customers, or on weekends and holidays — unless the utility can reconnect you the same day. The logic is simple: they can't leave you dark over a stretch when nobody answers the phone.

The 95-degree rule is why August feels safe

If gas or electricity runs the only cooling in your home, a utility with more than 100,000 residential customers — Ameren Illinois and ComEd both qualify many times over — cannot disconnect on any day the National Weather Service forecasts 95 degrees or hotter in the next 24 hours. The rule also covers the day before a weekend or holiday if 95-degree heat is forecast during it.

That rule has done a lot of quiet work in Belleville and the Metro East this summer. But read it again: 95 degrees. An 89-degree day in mid-September is fair game.

The September gap

Winter protection starts December 1 and runs through March 31. During that window, utilities can't disconnect LIHEAP and Percentage of Income Payment Plan households, electric space-heating customers, or qualifying service members and veterans. Other heating customers can only be disconnected after the utility offers a payment plan with no more than 10 percent down and hands over aid-agency contacts — and the customer turns it down.

Put the calendar together and the shape is obvious. The heat rule fades with the forecast. The winter rule hasn't started. September, October, and November are the months when a summer's worth of past-due balances meets no seasonal protection at all. That's shut-off season in Illinois, and it's here.

My take: if a final notice is sitting on your counter right now, the forecast is not a plan. The payment arrangement is the plan.

The payment plan the utility has to offer

Illinois requires utilities to offer residential customers a deferred payment arrangement — a DPA. Standard terms: a minimum 25 percent down payment on the past-due amount (the utility has discretion to take less), with the balance spread over 4 to 12 billing cycles alongside your current bills. You qualify as long as you haven't walked away from another DPA in the past 12 months.

Miss an installment plus the current bill by the second day after the due date and the plan defaults — but the first reinstatement is free by rule. One honest warning: a DPA stacks on top of bills that are already the highest of the year, so ask for the longest term you can get, not the shortest.

A 60-day medical hold exists too. A certificate from a licensed physician or local board of health that disconnection would aggravate a household member's medical condition stops a shut-off for 60 days and comes with its own installment plan for the balance.

If a utility isn't following any of this, the ICC takes complaints at 800-524-0795.

Get in the LIHEAP line before the winter rule starts

The winter rule protects LIHEAP households outright, and the new program year opens right in the middle of shut-off season. LIHEAP for 2026-27 starts taking applications October 1, 2026 for households with someone 60 or older, someone with a disability, a child age 5 or under, or a disconnection notice in hand, and November 1, 2026 for everyone else who's income-eligible.

The income line moved this year. Ameren Illinois and ComEd customers now qualify at up to 300% of the federal poverty level — for a family of four, that's roughly $8,250 in gross income over the 30 days before you apply, or about $99,000 a year. Two things happen when you're approved: a one-time benefit toward the bill, and enrollment in your utility's low-income discount. Getting that done before December 1 is what moves you from "offered a payment plan" to "can't be disconnected."

Where solar fits — honestly

A solar lease does nothing for a past-due balance. I want to be straight about that, because this industry has a habit of showing up at the worst moments with the wrong pitch.

What a lease changes is the next twelve summers. The supply portion of your bill — the part that jumped June 1 — is what solar production offsets, and lease rates in Illinois start as low as $0.10/kWh. That makes the largest slice of a summer bill predictable instead of subject to whatever the next June 1 filing brings. Delivery charges and fixed fees stay, so it's a smaller bill, not a zero bill, and any savings estimate depends on your roof and usage.

If the pattern in your house is "fine all year, gasping in August," two things are worth an afternoon: check whether your income qualifies for Illinois Solar for All, and run your last bill through our savings calculator. Current rate detail lives on our Ameren rates and ComEd rates pages, and there's some relief coming in the October supply-rate drop — though it won't erase a balance either.

Behind on a bill and thinking about whether solar math works for your house? Call me at (618) 217-2001 or use the contact page. I'll give you the real numbers, including when the answer is "fix the DPA first."

Frequently Asked Questions

Not on the hottest days. Illinois rule 83 Ill. Adm. Code 280.130 says a utility with more than 100,000 residential customers cannot disconnect service on any day the National Weather Service forecasts 95 degrees or above in the next 24 hours, and both Ameren Illinois and ComEd are well past that size. The same protection covers the day before a weekend or holiday if 95-degree heat is forecast during it. The catch is what the rule doesn't say: there is no blanket summer moratorium. On an 88-degree day in late September, the heat rule gives you nothing, and winter protections don't begin until December 1. If you're behind on your bill, the safest move is to call before the 10-day disconnection notice runs out and ask for a deferred payment arrangement rather than betting on the forecast.

At least 10 days. Under the Illinois Commerce Commission's Part 280 rules, a utility cannot disconnect service until at least 10 days after it sends or hand-delivers a written disconnection notice, and the notice has to state the reason and how to avoid being shut off. Two details matter. First, that notice stays effective for 45 days — the utility doesn't have to act on day 11, so a quiet month after a notice doesn't mean it expired. Second, timing rules limit when the truck can actually come: not after 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, not after noon on Friday for residential customers, and not on weekends or holidays, unless the utility is prepared to reconnect you the same day. Those 10 days are your window to set up a payment arrangement, so use them early.

From December 1 through March 31, Illinois blocks disconnection for several groups: households enrolled in LIHEAP or the Percentage of Income Payment Plan, customers who heat with electric space heating served by a utility with more than 100,000 customers, and qualifying service members and veterans. Everyone else who heats with gas or electricity gets a weaker version — before disconnecting, the utility has to offer a deferred payment arrangement with a down payment capped at 10 percent of the past-due balance and provide contact information for aid agencies, and it can only disconnect if the customer refuses. The moratorium isn't forgiveness. The balance keeps growing all winter, and utilities work through the backlog starting in April. In my experience the households that come out of winter in the best shape are the ones that got on LIHEAP or a payment plan in the fall, not the ones that waited.

A deferred payment arrangement, or DPA, is the payment plan Illinois requires utilities to offer residential customers with a past-due balance. The standard terms under Part 280: you put down a minimum of 25 percent of what you owe — the utility can accept less — and pay the rest over 4 to 12 billing cycles on top of each current bill. You're eligible as long as you haven't failed to complete another DPA in the past 12 months. The plan defaults if you miss the full installment plus the current bill by the second day after the due date, but the first reinstatement of a defaulted DPA is free by rule. Between December 1 and March 31, the arrangement a utility must offer a heating customer before disconnecting caps the down payment at 10 percent. A DPA stops the disconnection clock, which is why I tell people to ask for one the day the notice arrives.

Yes, for 60 days. If a licensed physician or local board of health certifies that disconnection would aggravate a medical condition for someone living in the home, the utility cannot disconnect service for 60 days from the date of certification — and if you were disconnected within the 14 days before the certificate comes in, the utility has to reconnect you. This isn't debt relief. The rule pairs the 60-day hold with a medical payment arrangement that spreads the past-due balance into installments starting about 30 days after certification, so the bill still has to get paid. But 60 days is real breathing room: enough time for a LIHEAP application to process, a settle-up month to pass, or a household income change to stabilize. If someone in your house uses powered medical equipment or has a heat-sensitive condition, get the certificate on file before the situation reaches a final notice, not after.