Good morning, everybody.
The Committee on Environmental Protection
and Energy will now come to order today.
We have two items before the committee in ordinance
to create a proposal for an anti-littering campaign
and Commonwealth Edison's annual
Summer preparedness hearing.
First, we'll begin with a roll call to establish quorum.
Um, chair Hadden is here.
Alder Knudsen. Present. Alder Ada Present.
Alder Ramirez. Present Alder Lopez.
All right, we'll come back. Uh, Alder Tabba Alder.
Scott Alder. Sig Cho Lopez. Yes.
Alder Cruz Alder Rodriguez Sanchez. Here Alder Conway. Here.
Alder Riley Alder Lawson.
Alder Clay Alder. Martin Alderman Al Howorth.
Do you want him back in
Alder Lopez?
Thank you. All right.
Uh, there being eight members present. We have a quorum.
Uh, joining us virtually, we have Alder Clay.
Um, per rule 59.
Can I have a motion to approve alder clay
as remote participation?
Now that we have established quorum? All right.
Alder LaSpada moves. All those in favor say aye.
All those opposed say nay.
And the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it
and Alder Clay will be marked as present
for today's meeting.
Um, I wanna recognize Alderman Moore, um,
as a non-member who's present with an item today.
Thank you for being here, and at this time,
we will begin the public comment period.
Public comment is limited to 30 minutes out
of respect for everyone's time.
Each speaker, speaker is limited to three minutes.
Um, and we're gonna start off with, uh, Rory Gilchrist.
Hello. Good morning. Should I wait for a timer? Wonderful.
Good morning. Chairwoman Hadden, members of the committee.
Uh, my name is Rory Gilchrist.
I am with the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America,
and the campaign to democratize com.
Ed. Uh, this moment comes at a critical juncture
for Chicago, for the climate, for the Great Lakes region,
indeed for our whole planet.
Um, working together as a city to furnish every one
of our Chicagoans with access to electricity,
which is a common good, uh, needs to be prioritized in terms
of the public good.
Um, our campaign has worked, uh, for many years
to raise awareness of this issue to advocate
for a municipal grid owned, operated, uh, by the city
of Chicago or a sister agency,
and run in the best interests of Chicagoans,
not the shareholders of a utility company.
Uh, we believe that this, uh, dynamic,
that this arrangement has numerous, uh, benefits
for the City of Chicago benefits in terms of the climate
benefits, in terms of racial justice and equity,
and substantial benefits in terms of combating, uh,
the history of corruption, uh, that is a deep part
of our city's reputation and a regrettable one at that.
Um, furthermore, I think the climate, uh,
crisis in particular really motivates bold, uh, considerate,
deliberate, and racially just action on this matter.
Um, time is running out to think boldly to act
with ambition and courage.
Um, we do this work, uh,
not based on the, uh, constrained thinking of the past,
but instead out of a heartfelt desire
to genuinely do better, uh, and envision a more just
and green future for Chicagoans.
Um, short of full municipalization, we feel
that a strong franchise agreement with Commonwealth Edison,
uh, marks a
positive step forward for the city of Chicago.
There are many things that a better franchise agreement than
the one executed in the nineties, uh, would look like.
That's an agreement that is as short as possible,
an agreement that foregrounds, uh, active innovation
in sustainable technology, sustainable infrastructure.
It's one that has a deep, uh,
community accountable voice over the
workings of this utility.
And, uh, ultimately that sees the provision of electricity
as a public good, uh, for all Chicagoans with an end
to unjust expensive shutoffs that are felt most keenly
by the poorest Chicagoans.
Uh, so it's an economic issue, it's a racial justice issue,
and it is a climate justice issue.
Uh, the city of Chicago must be
and remain a world leader in climate across all
of its dimensions, including
and certainly not limited to electricity. Thank you.
Thank you for your comments. Next up we have Paul Ey.
Good morning. Uh, my name is Paul Hinsey.
I am a, uh, resident of the 30th ward, uh, comad rate payer,
and, uh, an avid user of electricity.
Uh, so I am here also representing the, uh, campaign
to democratize Comad.
And, um, my comrade, Rory, has, has done a great job
of outlining eloquently, I think the case.
Um, I'd just like to highlight a few points.
Um, I'd like to call attention
to the underlying power structure here.
Um, we, the people of Chicago have made a deal with ComEd
to, uh, to, for it to deliver our electricity.
What do we give them? We give them a monopoly.
We give them guaranteed profits in exchange for what we hope
to be good service at a fair price to our citizens.
The problem is that comment is an investor owned
corporation, which means that it's ultimately beholden
to its shareholders to deliver them returns.
And it does this in the form of its annual profits
to the tune of $400 million in terms
of what's generated from the Chicago area.
I'd encourage the committee to think about this
as a leak in our energy system.
Our energy system, the thing that delivers a public good
of electricity for Chicagoans, uh,
is generating this extra profit that is going out
of our community, that is being leached from the system.
This profit needs to be, uh, reinvested in the system.
And the way that we do that is by municipal.
We will not be able to transform our grid, meet our,
achieve our climate goals,
or invest in our energy future
with a private profit driven utility.
This robbed Chicago of the authority
and flexibility necessary to enact a progressive
and forward looking energy po policy.
So the, so both a strong franchise agreement
and the decision to municipalize,
I think our steps along this journey that get us
to a cleaner and stronger energy future.
And, uh, I'd like to encourage the committee
to consider this as they move
forward with their work. Thank you.
Thank you for your comments. There's no
sound. We wanna take a break.
You know what, we're gonna take a brief pause
for some technical assistance, uh, issues.
Apparently there's no sound on the live stream.
Um, maybe we should just continue to mouth things quietly
and make people think we're talking.
Um, so we're gonna take a brief recess, uh,
five minutes while we work on the tech issue
Sent out to the committee.
Can I have a motion to approve the Rule 45 report?
All right. Alder person, Rodriguez Sanchez.
So moves all those in favor
of passing the, uh, the resolution.
Say, aye. All opposed, say nay.
And the opinion of the chair of the ayes have it.
Um, our first item, uh, the first item
before the committee today is
so 20 23 0 0 0 2 2 4 9,
directing the Chief Sustainability Officer
and Commissioner of Streets and Sanitation to prepare
and present a Keep Chicago Clean Public Service
advertising campaign proposal
to the Committee on Environmental Protection and Energy.
Members of the committee were sent a copy
of the substitute language.
We've also provided physical copies
of the substitute ordinance to all members.
No major substantive changes were made.
The changes include modifying the date for the report
to be delivered to October 1st, 2024,
and including the Department of Streets
and Sanitation in the preparation of the proposal.
Um, may I have a motion to accept the substitute ordinance
for the consideration for the committee?
All right. Alder Conway. So moves all those
in favor say aye.
Aye. All those opposed say nay.
And the opinion of the chair of the ayes have it.
Um, joining us today are Commissioner Stallard
and Mimi Simon from the Department of Streets in Sanitation.
We also have Commissioner Tovar
and Deputy Commissioner, uh, uh, PIO from the Department
of Environment here to answer any questions.
But with that, I would like to turn it over
to Alderman Moore, the lead sponsor of the ordinance,
to share his insight and, uh, tell us about it.
Thank you so much, chairman.
I, first of all, I wanna appreciate
and say thank you to you for, um, your work on this with me
as well, and, um, making sure that we get this to,
um, to the council.
Uh, uh, people, a lot of people, as you know,
volunteer in many different ways.
And one of the ways I volunteered when I was young was
cleaning up, um, our communities.
And one of the things that I've seen over the years, way
before it became Alderman is what it means to have a,
a clean, um, community, a clean block.
And when you see blocks that are clean, one of the things
that you tend to see is that they tend to be
also, um, safer.
And when they're safe, um, especially in communities
that have not been represented well.
We, we tend to get people to want, want
to come over there and develop.
And so one of the things that, uh,
I just don't only u only use as a slogan,
but also as, um, a, uh, a mission for me
and my community is that a clean community is a safe
community, is a working community.
And so, uh, what we see is that, um,
when our communities are not clean, they're not safe.
But also what you don't realize is costing money.
Uh, as you connect with your, um, ward superintendents
and everybody, how many times are you calling them to say,
Hey, go get, go clean this.
And this is beyond just the flight dumping stuff,
which we'll continue to deal with as well, uh,
for those bad actors out there.
But just regular people just throwing stuff out, the, um,
throwing stuff out their windows, car windows, um,
just not being, um, diligent about keeping the city clean.
And at one point, it just, as I drove the city,
not just even in my ward, it just, I'm like, man,
there's just trash everywhere.
And so what I wanted to do is make sure that
as a city we pay attention to the, to this, to this,
and make sure we do a keep Chicago clean campaign.
Um, the benefit of that you all is, um,
not only from the cleanliness standpoint,
but from the environmental standpoint.
Um, and,
and the cost, again, standpoint of, um, our, um, city,
different city agencies having
to do extra work when garbage is going down.
Um, the sewage, when garbage is clogging up, um, um,
water grates and everything like that, those are cost to us
as a city of Chicago.
And I think, um, any monies that we put
behind this effort would be, um, an a a a cost benefit
and it could save money on other things.
And so, um, I definitely want the, uh, commissioner Streets
and Sanitation and the, um, uh, the, uh,
chief Sustainability Officer to continue to work
with me on this so we can make sure this is part
of the budget, um, that's coming up, um, fall so
that we can implement this.
And I can't, I can tell you I couldn't have done this, um,
without the direction of, first of all,
commissioner Cole Stallard, um, his input, his support
on this was huge.
Um, um, it, it's like anything else.
When a commissioner supports the tool,
we should give them that tool.
And this is one of the tools that I know he can speak to
that would help a great deal.
Um, uh, in terms of the manpower that we use to, um, trying
to keep this, um, um, city clean.
And then our, um, chief Sustainability Officer, Angela Tova,
I wanna thank her because, um, my original ordinance, um,
she was able to see some things
and then say, Hey, alderman, this is what we can do better.
And as I, as everybody know, I'm a strong believer
of collaboration
and listening to the subject matter experts,
and I want to thank you so much for commissioner
for your thoughts and taking this back to legal
to get a better draft than where I started from.
And so, um, I'm hoping, um, this committee will, um,
look at this, um, pass this
and give them the opportunity, um,
to put something together, this budget
for this budget season that we can fund, um,
creating a campaign around keeping Chicago
clean. Thank you, chairman.
Thank you Alderman. Um,
I know I'm looking forward to this.
Uh, we love doing cleanup events.
Um, I'm thinking about, um,
and we'll do a little call and response here.
Show of hands, how many of you have relics from like
previous administrations?
I've got a few things hanging around the 49th Ward,
like part of old campaigns that like, have DA's name on 'em,
like, we've got these like placards or little things.
So I'm, I'm excited about maybe what we could see, um,
that's, you know, not 20 years old, um, on some ways that,
so I'm excited about this, um,
that you brought forth to the committee.
So wanna open up for questions? I saw, uh, Alderon Lawson.
Thank you Madam Chair.
Um, I have a blue cart pencil holder on my desk, uh,
with Daley's name in a City Seal from when the blue cart
Was our big there. We need a, an
Instagram for this,
Uh, maybe, maybe what's on Bennet's desk.
Um, it's a long story, so I, I want to thank, uh, you
and I want to thank the sponsor for this, um,
because I think, especially in a neighborhood like mine,
it's a lot of work to keep everything clean.
And we've got groups, I've got Cubs, I've got ssas,
we've got trash people, but Streets
and Santa is actually doing as much as anybody
and I think maybe doesn't get the credit
that the other people do because it's not as obvious
or it's just what the city should be doing.
And so, um, I know that without all the work that happens,
my neighborhood would be filthy.
You know, we have so many people that are there, uh,
that live there that come through
and that work there, take the train.
Um, so I really welcome this.
I think too, you know, a lot of, uh,
young people reach out on environmental issues,
specifically trash, sustainability and litter.
And this is a great way to get
them involved in their community.
You know, we've got one clean
and green day that I think is all sort of promoted, uh,
you know, in, in different ways, in different neighborhoods.
But, um, to have something that was regular,
to have regular meetup points to have, and,
and you've heard me say this too, uh, sort
of changing our culture on sustainability, on cleanliness,
we used to be a little bit more innovative.
We still are, we're just bad at promoting it.
And so I think what a lot of what we're doing here
is really promoting what we're doing
and how we can make that better.
So, um, my full support
and, uh, I look forward to the rollout.
Thank you.
Walter Conway. Yeah, I, I would just ask, um, uh,
either Commissioner Tovar
or Alderman Moore, like what, what, um,
directionally what kind of budget are we thinking about
for this and where is it gonna come from?
That's why we are pushing this, um, out in terms of
have a, a whole presentation done by October 1st.
Uh, if you see that at the bottom here, um,
and we're talking about proposed bond, a proposed budget
to launch and, and to continue this campaign.
And so, um, it's, this ordinance, um, starts that process
and not only with their input, but with our input as well.
Um, and so, um, and,
and hopefully, um, with those conversations, um, we can get
to what that, you know, at least dollar amount looks like,
and, um, you know, where we can get those, um, um,
sources of funds from.
But I also remember this thing about
what I always call from an accounting standpoint,
the opportunity costs.
Uh, I think we can't,
it's a situation we can't afford not to do it.
And, and, and I think we are, we are,
we are expending money again.
Um, instead of doing this campaign
where we are pushing really the residents at the city
of Chicago to do a better job
and keeping that community clean, that's some overtime
or that's some hours or manpower that I don't have
to send back, or that streets
and Sand do not have to send back to
that block to get things done.
It would be a lot easier if we knew whether this is gonna
cost half a million dollars or $10 million, you know, kind
of what we're, what we're thinking about.
No, I agree. I agree with you. No, I agree.
I agree a hundred percent with you, but
that's why you haven't talked October 1st.
You're not passing, you can't
do anything as unless it's funded.
And that's why we have, um, when it, as you read it,
it says, uh, the both, um, the Commissioner Chiefs
and San Sanitation and Chief Sustainability Officer, um,
will put together, will help put together a proposed launch,
a proposed budget to launch this.
So once they get that, then we'll know that answer.
You know, we can't, we can't do nothing
unless it's budgeted for,
and part of that process is doing that, passing this,
passing this or ordinance allows
that process to happen. Okay.
Is that a helpful clarification for Y Alderman?
So there not really, this is not an approval,
this is not an approval of a program.
Yeah. Um, this would be if you're supporting this
and approval for these two department heads
to create a proposal to present to council.
Yeah, I know. I, I understand that.
So, and, and all I would ask, I see,
I see Commissioner Staler there over there as well,
to the extent that, I mean, this is kind of a,
a marketing plan, but if there is something more specific
and tangible we can do to make the, make the city cleaner,
I would encourage that to be part
of this presentation being it more garbage cans,
different garbage cans, more people to pick up garbage,
more garbage trucks, whatever that is.
I don't know what it is, but I think that mm-hmm.
We, I think that we all agree with the concept here.
So I look forward to seeing the presentation. Thank you.
Uh, re recognize Alderman Martin for quorum
and, uh, uh, alderman Howorth, uh, your next up.
Thank you chair. I wanna thank Alderman more
for bringing this forward, and I wanted to share that.
Um, this is a great initiative.
I hope to see that the commissioners come together
and, uh, find ways to lift up the community
that's already doing the work.
You know, I, in, in our area in Edgewater
and uptown, um, block clubs are coming together to, um,
put stations like every other block, um, tabling.
Um, it's an opportunity to bring people together
and then they get donations from local businesses for, for,
uh, food and snacks and that kind of thing.
Um, and also the parks are doing a great job too.
So, um, finding ways to, to, uh,
cut across all agencies to come together.
So I think this is fantastic.
I hope that, that we can find a kind of a distributed model,
you know, so it's not on the agencies on Streets
and Sands to do this or the
Department of Environment to do it.
It's an opportunity for us to build a community. Thank you.
Thank you. Um,
if there are no other questions, could I have a motion
to recommend approval of this item?
All right. So moved by Alder LaSpada.
All those in favor say, aye. All those opposed say nay.
And the opinion of the chair of the ayes have it.
I'll report this vote as a recommendation
to pass at the next city council on June 12th, 2024.
Thank you. Alderman Moore. Congrats.
Thank you. Yes.
Thank you to our commissioners for being present.
All right. Uh, the second item on today's agenda is Comm Ed,
summer preparedness subject matter hearing.
So joining us from Comm Ed, we have Dave Perez, Mark Barron,
Louis Swanger, Valerie Colletti, Melissa Washington, Scott V
and Jim Ortega.
Um, also joining us from the city of Chicago,
our Commissioner Tovar Deputy Commissioner Jared Zeo from
the Department of Environment
and Commissioner Hernandez Tomlin,
and Deputy Commissioner Woods from the Department of Fleet
and Facility Management.
We have asked city representatives to be in attendance
for today's hearing in case questions come up during q
and a that are better suited for the city to answer,
but they are not here to present today.
That said, all committee members should have received an
email containing questions submitted to CommEd ahead
of today's meeting, as well as a packet from CommEd.
We have asked Com-Ed, to be prepared
to present on the data today.
Um, but there will be time after the hearing for questions
and answers from the committee.
Um, I'm now gonna turn it over to our guests from ComEd
so they can formally introduce themselves and share the data
and analysis on grid reliability as we enter.
Um, uh, congratulations again this year.
This will be the hottest year on record.
We're on a spree now of
making every year the hottest year on record.
So as we enter the hot summer months, um, you know,
this is always a timely matter.
So, um, thank you to our guest, and, uh, please begin.
Good morning, and thank you Cher Hadden, vice Chair,
new Knutson and members of the Environmental Protection
and Energy Committee for the opportunity to discuss
ComEd's Summer Preparedness Plans.
I am Dave Perez, ComEd's, new Chief Operating Officer.
I am joined today by members of our senior leadership team
and subject matter experts.
Melissa Washington, senior Vice President
of Customer Operations and Strategy at ComEd.
Mark Barnick, our Senior Vice President
of Technical Services, Valerie ti, our Senior Vice President
of Distribution Operations, Louis Bin Zwanger,
our Senior Vice President of Governmental
regulatory and External Affairs.
Scott Vogue, our Vice President
of Energy Policy and Acquisition.
And Jaime Ortega, director of Grid Analytics.
I've had the pleasure of meeting with several of you
and look forward to working more closely with all members
of the City Council.
Before I jump straight into discussing our grid's readiness,
I like to tell you a little bit about myself.
I stepped into the role
of Chief Operating Officer in January
after serving at Comad in various roles
for the past 28 years.
I'm an electrical engineer by training.
I graduated from UIC
and grew up on the north side of Chicago
after immigrating to the US from Mexico
when I was six years old.
Having lived in Chicago for most of my life, I am familiar
with each of the 77 neighborhoods in Chicago.
And from my work at ComEd, I am intimately familiar
with our infrastructure and how it serves our communities.
Today, we're proud
to provide an update on come's summer preparedness efforts,
including an interview, an overview
of our reliability performance, how our system holds up,
providing service to our customers, rain or shine.
In 2023,
our Chicago customers realized a remarkable
99.996% reliability rate
and best in the nation.
And 1.2 million of Come mes,
1.3 million Chicago customers experienced either zero
or only one power interruption.
Both of these reliability metrics are best on record
and best in the country.
Through our investments in the Chicago grid,
we have achieved industry leading reliability
with the city's overall reliability improving
by 85% since 2012.
In fact, the city's reliability performance is 10 times
more reliable than the national average
for utilities serving over 1 million customers.
These performance gains are why ComEd was named the number
one most reliable utility in America last year.
We are focused on ensuring all
of our communities have reliable power,
including our vulnerable communities,
or what Illinois refers to as equity investment
eligible communities, or e IECs.
It's worth noting that the majority of Chicago e IECs
have better reliability than the city
average by design.
Our grid investments prioritize reliability improvements
for areas most vulnerable to storms
and the effects of climate change.
2024 is off to a strong start,
and we are well positioned
to deliver strong reliability this summer
across every community in the city of Chicago.
You know, it wasn't always this way
nearly 30 years ago when I began at the company, I remember
how customers in Chicago practically planned
to keep their flashlight handy
when they knew a storm was coming.
But that's not the case today.
Today we are engaged with all of you,
our customers in our communities to ensure
our system is performing reliably and equitably.
While we are proud of the progress we are making
to improve the service to our customers,
we are not stopping there.
We take seriously our responsibility to our customers
to maintain the system.
We aren't going to be satisfied with the status quo.
We continue to meet quarterly with the city
to review our reliability performance
Com-Ed conducts extensive summer preparedness planning
and exercises to ensure we are ready
to accommodate summer's peak load season and the heat
and weather factors place upon the grid.
One key area of focus throughout all of this is on ensuring
the grid is prepared for severe weather.
We are currently in the midst of the storm season.
Conditions in the city
and across the country are getting hotter
and wetter due to climate change.
Many of you know summers that are typically marked
with thunderstorms
and high winds have grown increasingly more
severe and frequent.
And Chicago continues to see the number of 90 degree
or more days increase.
Our preparation efforts include operational readiness,
drills and exercises, flood mitigation plans,
ensuring all critical work is complete prior to the summer,
and ensuring that proper stocking levels
of key critical equipment
and materials are above what's needed to respond.
Last summer, between June 1st
and August 31st,
our investments in automated grid technology helped detect
and prevent 117,000 customer
interruptions in Chicago.
Unpredictable weather is a constant reminder of our need
to continue investments to modernize the grid.
Also supporting our summer readiness is the strong
collaboration we have with the City
of Chicago operations team.
Since 2018, come has had a full-time member
of our team embedded in the OEMC
to support real-time alignment, planning
and coordination with city agencies during
and in advance of emergency events.
Our OEMC partnership has been critical
for restoring customer outages
and repairs during storms,
coordinating emergency preparedness plans for citywide
large scale events,
and for planning to support city teams in working in
and around our power infrastructure safely.
The high level of coordination will continue to be essential
as the city and ComEd work together in 2024
to support the needs of our residents.
And as the city welcomes more than 50,000 visitors
and a national spotlight during the Democratic
National Convention, customers are at the center
of everything we do.
We recognize the hardship that many of our communities face,
and we are actively working to deliver solutions
that will keep the lights on
and keep bills affordable for all our customers.
Last year, we connected approximately 198,000
eligible customers to roughly 93 million
in financial assistance through federal, state
and combat programs, including 45 million
to more than 97,000 Chicago residents.
And we continue to find new ways
to support customers in need.
Last year, ComEd kicked off a first
of its kind community resources fair series
with two events held right here in the city
to meet customers where they are by bringing a suite
of support services to their neighborhood.
Collectively, these fairs helped connect over 3000
customers to support programs
and a thousand of them to building assistance
and energy management programs.
Specifically, this work continues this year
with the next Chicago resource Fair scheduled
for July 27 in the Belmont Kragan neighborhood.
We are actively responding to evolving demands
as communities and our customers increasingly shift
to cleaner and more efficient technologies.
To address climate change.
ComEd is ready to meet the moment with an abundance of clean
and reliable energy found in Illinois
and available on our grid.
This includes launching programs to expand solar
and renewables and
to roll out new customer resources and incentives.
In the past year, we've launched over 90 million
in electric vehicle rebates to help residential business
and public sector customers expand EV charging
and upgrade their fleets.
These programs put a key focus on equity
reserving more than half of the total funds
for low income customers and those who reside
or do business in eecs
and with higher rebate amounts for these customers as well.
The program is still accepting applications.
We're focused on ensuring that a clean energy future creates
opportunity for all.
For me, the ultimate measure of our success
will be to ensure all our customers from across all
of our communities can access the benefits of clean energy,
all while balancing affordability.
This is just the beginning with customers demands expected
to continue to evolve.
And with ComEd
and the City of Chicago sharing a vision
for making sure the clean energy transition is accessible
for all customers and communities, we stand ready
and the grid is ready to meet the moment.
And we look forward to building on our 100 year partnership
to meet our goals for a cleaner future.
Thank you. And with that, we are happy
to take your questions.
Thank you very much for the presentation.
Um, and so we're opening up for
questions from committee members and guests.
Alright, Alder Martin.
Thank you Chair. Um, I think still good morning everybody,
at least for a few minutes.
Um, first I wanted
to ask about inflation reduction ACT funding.
Um, wanted to see if come yet has received any funding, um,
if it, if there are funds that it thinks, uh, it would be,
uh, competitive for.
And ultimately if there are funds that you are
or plan to, um, uh, pursue what you see
as being the benefits
of those funds in investing in Chicago.
Thank you. Thank you. It's a great, great question.
And yes, we are definitely, uh, partnering up, you know,
with all the agencies, uh, that are involved in that.
And I will allow, uh, mark Barnick our Senior Vice president
to, to elaborate on all of the projects
and all of the funding that we have secured.
Good morning. Can you hear me? Good morning.
Uh, my name is Mark Barnick
and as Dave introduced, I'm the senior Vice President
of our tech services organization.
And, uh, I oversee our engineering smart grid
and, uh, our project
and contract management, uh, organizations at ComEd.
Uh, we continue to look at
what grants are available
and we continue to submit applications for both IRA
and IIJA Specifically.
We take a look at what is also part of our grid plan.
In other words, these grants come with funding,
but they also come with investments
that are commitments from ConEd as well.
Uh, one of the grants that I'll specify that we've been, uh,
successful in relates to, uh, middle mile fiber.
So at ConEd we're continuing with investments to, uh,
build out, uh, advanced communication telemetry systems,
specifically to be able to deal with all of the renewables
and the continuation of reliability on the system.
And what we were able to do was to submit that grant
and we were successful with the NTIA
and that's the, uh, national, uh,
telecommunications infrastructure administration,
and that's going to benefit communities on the south
and west side to provide broadband middle mile broadband,
uh, eventually to those communities.
So that's one example of, uh, some
of the grants that we are working with.
That's great. Um, if I could ask through the chair,
if you're able to share a list, um, it doesn't have
to be exhaustive 'cause I'm sure that there are a lot
of potential things that you're kicking the tires on,
haven't yet made a decision,
but it still would be great to get, um, a, a larger sense as
to what you all are envisioning through the IRA, um, and,
and what's available with that.
Um, next I wanted to talk about, um,
uh, capacity across the city.
And I, I found it really helpful
that you shared information in advance with the safety
and KFI breakdown by Ward.
Um, I did note in, in going through them that, uh,
I think it was disproportionately the case
that the better performing wards typically
were majority white wards.
And the worst performing wards were typically black wards
to a lesser extent, uh, majority Latino wards.
And with the understandable caveat that things have overall,
and I think within the vast majority
of awards been improving, we still see those disparities.
Um, and I I was hoping you could shed some light on
what you anticipated investments both with this year
and going into next year, uh, will result in, in terms
of, uh, reducing that gap
between the best performing wards, which again,
disproportionately or majority white wards.
And the, the worst performing wards, which are,
are primarily black wards.
Mark, take that.
So our goal is to ensure that our tra trajectory
of our reliability improvements goes across all words in all
of our communities, all of our customers.
Um, when we take a look at performance
and in particular, we, we do use the EIC census blocks and,
and verify how is the reliability, uh,
seen across the city.
What we actually find is that the majority
of our EIEC communities,
and that includes the state's definition
of R three communities, the restore or reinvest
and renew, uh, per the CJ law, what we find is that
actually our EIEC communities perform better than the
average of the whole city, uh, reliability.
And what we do is
we leverage data to drive our investments.
So we take a look at worse performing circuits,
we take a look at worse performing words.
We take a look at EIEC specifically to ensure
that there's no census block that's left behind.
And that data drives what our investments are
for the following year or years.
And so again, it's the data that drives it.
And if we see abnormalities or, uh, worse or
or less performing circuits
or areas, that's what drives our reliability improvements.
Got it. Do you happen to know off the top of your head
how many, um, census tracks or,
or those, those units that you had mentioned
are exist in Chicago?
Yeah. I'll, I'll ask, uh, Mr. Ortega to
Yes. Share that data.
Go ahead,
Jim. Uh, um,
in terms of, uh, the city of Chicago, the number
of census blocks that we are tracking is,
one second I have it.
Um, 2,142 census blocks.
Of those 1,457 are
what we call are the EIEC area.
So the majority of, um, 68% of census block
of the city is in EIEC areas.
Mm-Hmm. Which consists
of both EJC environmental justice communities, as well
as the R three communities.
Um, the non EIEC consists of, uh, 572,
and then the census, uh, the central business district
as we like to, uh, take those out, uh,
and look at those separately as well, that consists
of 113 census blocks.
Okay. So the majority are EIEC throughout the city.
Do you think, can you provide
through the chair perhaps a list of 50 of the,
the census blocks that are the poorest performing
and then noting what steps you're taking to improve them?
Because I, I think your point's well taken of
this isn't an apples to apples comparison.
Right. What you were able to compile here in terms
of ward based isn't always
what you're gonna be looking at in terms of
what you're prioritizing in terms of improvements.
And so it would be helpful to see, okay,
maybe looking at our,
and at a little more granular level to see where those 50
or so most problematic census blocks are
and what you have in the queue in the near term to improve.
I think that would be, um, good to see.
Um, my last question for now is
around disconnection of customers.
I'm curious what you're seeing year over year.
Are the number of disconnections staying steady?
Are they going up, are they going down?
And then if you can also, um,
share a little bit more information, um, about
what with the investments,
and I know that there was about 45 million,
I think the remarks had shared, had, had indicated going
to 97,000 Chicagoans.
You know, those are good round numbers.
I think if you just do some quick division that amounts
to about $450 per person.
I'm curious what you see as being opportunities
for improvement with those funds
or with other funds in the future, given your understanding
as to how disconnections
and people who are at risk of disconnections, um, are, are,
are, are existing right now.
Okay. Um, I'll take that. Hi, alderman Martin.
Good to see you again. You too.
Um, Melissa Washington, I lead the, uh, customer operations
for come, which also includes the advocacy for customers
around billing assistance.
And, um, you know, just for clarity, we, um,
the big, we are coming off the moratorium.
So the moratorium means that we're not doing disconnections
of residential customers, uh, up until, uh, April four,
April 1st typically.
Um, but we had deferred that
because we were implementing a big billing, uh,
transformation system,
and we wanted to make sure that we, um, moved forward with
that implementation and stabilized it
before we began, uh, any type of disconnections.
So from an apples to apples from last year to this year,
you would see lower disconnections.
Um, but we do keep track of delinquencies.
Um, and what you're seeing this year, uh, is that, um,
customers who are 30 days, um,
or more delinquent is a little bit higher than
what you would've seen the same time last year.
But that's primarily
because we have not implemented any
of the collection processes.
We've sent very, um, soft letters to customers,
just helping them to know what their balance due, you know,
was and if they were behind.
And we did that because we wanted to make sure
that customers were still applying for any of the programs
that we had available, um,
and not wait for, uh, a disconnection notice to come
before they moved in advance the ball on that.
So when you think about the programs
that we offer, it's a variety.
It's everything from, um, a deferred payment arrangement
where they're allowed to spread the balance
of their arrearage over a 12 month period.
Um, there's also budget billing, you know,
which is available to all customers.
And then you start getting into programs
that are based upon your income, uh, levels, uh,
that will provide either payment assistance
or, you know, payment programs.
So, um, what we have seen
that even though we have not done the collections,
we are seeing, uh, a very significant number of customers
that are enrolling in, uh, programs like liheap.
And the, the rate in of enrollment is higher than last year.
So when you look at what we've, um, been able to work with,
um, our local, um, administrative agents in the communities
and DCEO, we see more, uh, participation in that.
But from a city of Chicago perspective, I think I,
I might've shared this, but we're seeing again, you know,
this year probably about 20%
of your 1.2 million residential customers, um,
that are 30 days or more, um, uh, delayed.
But that 30 days, you know, is, is
where we start to look at it.
But it could be that people are quickly resolving it
or they're getting on deferred payment
arrangement plans. Mm-Hmm.
Uh, one follow up question, if I might.
Um, which is, uh, knowing that, um,
as I think everyone's aware of, we are seeing more frequent
and severe, um, weather activity, particularly storms,
thunderstorms, windstorms, that, um,
also can bring a lot of significant heat in ways
that we hadn't seen in prior decades.
I'm curious how you see the nexus existing
between increasingly severe weather events
during the summer months in particular, and disconnections.
And if that change, those changing weather patterns are,
or may soon have you take a different approach
to con disconnection policy so that there aren't individuals
who say after a derecho, like
what we had in 2020 if memory serves,
that there is a pause in, in disconnections happening so
that we can all get through the worst of it.
Now that's a very valid question,
and that's exactly what we do now.
So, um, you know,
the first thing we do focus on is making sure we're
restoring people as quickly as we can.
And then during the time that we are doing restorations,
collection processes are put on pause.
Um, the other thing that we've done and implemented, um,
and, and, and working under when customers are applying
for, um, assistance with liheap, for example,
there's always an application period
and a processing period.
If we know and,
and we are notified that customers are applying for, um,
grants and they just may be waiting for the approval,
we also pause disconnection
until those applications are reviewed.
So, you know, from that perspective, there's a, there's a,
um, synchronization that we make sure customers are not,
you know, caught in the middle, you know, of it.
And so that's another area that we pause.
And the last thing that I will share, when you talk about,
I thought at first you were gonna ask me about increasing,
um, numbers of people
who have been benefiting from LIHEAP this
year compared to last year.
The other thing that we just filed in, uh, March, uh, was
for a low, um, income discount.
And that, uh, tariff once approved will allow us
to basically provide a discount
to customers based upon their income levels.
Uh, it's a five tier, um, proposal that we have in front
of the ICC that we hope to have a decision by, um,
maybe the end of this year, beginning of next year,
and we can implement it after that.
Noted. That's all I have for right now. Thank you, chair.
Thank you so much for that. Um, other questions right now?
All right, then I'm gonna ask some questions.
Um, uh, baby starting off,
and I appreciate in the packet the comparison of, um,
kind of what our reliability was over some recent storms.
I was wondering if you all could maybe walk us
through that a little bit more.
Um, so looking at the most recent one, um, that we had just,
uh, here this month, um, in May.
Um, but could you speak a little bit about
what you're noticing with these outages, um, with your
kind of response to them?
So as you, as you mentioned in your, in your presentation,
we know we are getting these kind
of more frequent and severe events.
So looking, um, uh, you, you took me back with the,
the 2020 derecho, uh, figures, um, which I think, uh,
49th and 50th ward residents, uh,
especially still have a lot of, uh,
uh, traumatic memories of.
But yeah, if you could kind of walk us through a little bit
of what we're seeing in these numbers and,
and what that tells us on how you are working
to be more responsive to these storm events.
And I absolutely, it's a great, it's a great question
and I'll, I'll turn it over to Jaime, who we, you know,
can go over the details,
but I will tell you that, you know,
what we are seeing is we're seeing more frequent, you know,
more severe storms,
but the investments we've made in the grid
in the last 10 years are really yielding the benefits
and avoiding and mitigating the significant
customer interruptions that we would typically see in the
past from these types of storms.
And also the investment in our people with the training
and their preparedness to be able to respond safely, um,
to restore our customers and our communities.
Back to, back to normal is, is also, you know, a a show
of the resiliency
of the organization from a people perspective.
But Jaime, why don't you, you know,
elaborate on the last storm and,
and what we saw in terms of numbers and response.
Yeah. Um, hi. So, um, can you hear, okay, there we go.
So I, I do wanna make a correction. We did have a typo.
It says 29,000.
'cause this was right, right off the press from the last
storm for the city of Chicago.
The impact from the May 21st storm was 11,000 customers.
Um, we were,
and then in total, the entire system,
it was 89,000 customers.
Uh, we, you know, our system experience wind speeds, uh,
upwards of 80 miles per hour.
Uh, it was, uh, in terms of some of the gusts, I think, uh,
in Texas, they seen similar types of winds.
They had roughly 800,000 customer outages.
So, uh, very strong winds.
Uh, with that said, you, you could see that it was, uh,
constant winds.
The gray bar or the gray shaded area
represents the entire system in terms of every, um, minute,
how many customers are without power.
And you could see that it slowly ramps up.
And then, uh, as soon as we get to our peak,
we're now focusing on our restoration, uh, for the system.
We were able to recover, restore 94% of the customers,
uh, within 12 hours of losing power.
So they were restored. And that's a big threshold
for us in terms of 12 hours, uh, with, um, several of the,
uh, resiliency metrics, uh, across Illinois.
We are targeting 12 hours in terms of being able to recover.
Uh, the idea is that a storm typically takes a couple hours,
two to four hours to go through our service territory.
And then the question is, how quick can we bounce back, uh,
for the city of Chicago For the 11,000 customers,
we were able to restore 99%
of them within 12 hours of losing power.
So we were, uh, able to restore
customers in Chicago much faster than outside Chicago.
Uh, in terms of, uh, when we got the last customer,
so we were, you know, right
around 16 hours was the longest duration for a city
of Chicago customer across the service territory.
It took us, um, a little over 24 hours.
We got 99% restored within, uh, 24 hours,
96% within 16 hours.
So it's, it's a comparison of our system number
to the city of Chicago.
And you can see that the city of Chicago makes up
for a smaller number.
I know, uh, there's another comparison in there
for January 12th, uh,
there were some questions about the January 12th storm, um,
for that particular storm.
So similar to, so that was the 29,000 in the city
of Chicago, we were able to restore 99% within 12 hours,
um, across the system.
And that one hit us, you could see really fast.
Yeah, we, we, we seen a spike up early, uh, in the morning,
and we restored 98% within,
across the system within 12 hours.
And then, um, we were able to get, uh,
practically all the customers restored within, uh, 24 hours.
And the reason I say that storm is important
because that one also impacted other areas in the Midwest.
So we did, uh, we were able to, uh, obtain data, uh,
from other utilities in terms of
how their restorations were.
And if you go to the slide with the multiple lines,
you'll see that the dotted line represents our restoration
for Com-Ed, compared to some of the other utilities.
Um, you'll see that, you know, as soon as, uh,
we hit our peak, you know,
we're focusing on restoring customers
and the majority of our customers were restored within 24
hours across the Midwest.
You could see where some of the other utilities,
particularly, uh, in Michigan and, uh, and,
and even in, uh, Wisconsin, where to deal, uh, in terms
of restoration, uh, it took longer for them.
And I think that's a credit to our operations group.
Um, this gets back to what Dave Perez indicated.
Um, it's not only, you know, are we focusing on trying
to prevent outages,
but we're implementing drills, uh, in order to bounce back,
to recover as fast as possible, being prepared
before that storm hits us so that we can restore
as many customers as fast as possible, you know, within
that first 12 hours, within that 24 hours.
And, and this just is a demonstration of, you know,
come performance during those storms.
Thank you for that. I'm wondering if,
if any folks have any questions along those lines.
Um, okay.
Uh, then I'll, uh, I've got a couple more,
but I see, uh, Alder Fit Lopez
has a question, so I'll pass it to him.
Yeah, thank you. Um,
and we're just, uh, looking at some of the, some
of the reasons or causes for, uh, interruptions.
Um, my question around,
and this in, in our world, we had, uh, um,
during the winter, I know this is, uh,
I will talk about extreme weather in particular.
Uh, but what is the kind of coordination, I think
with agencies like CHA in particular,
I'm concerned about seniors when there are interruptions,
elevators that depend on that.
Um, the coordination of OEMC, um, I'm looking, you know,
in the 25th Ward reliability report,
but in that particular case, um, in one
of our senior buildings, even though
there were a few attempts to get the generator going, um,
it actually took us, um, a few weeks
to get it back in, um, um,
in the reliable, uh, conditions.
So just in terms
of now looking into the different causes in, in terms
of overheating equipment, underground equipment,
in this case, for my understanding, um,
this may be a distribution site that had the issue,
but internally, um, then the building,
and again, as you know, some
of the buildings have all the infrastructure.
So the CHA, uh, had an issue for a few weeks
before we were able
to get the power back in a reliable manner.
So just in terms of, maybe, again,
I'm just looking specifically of the 25th World Report, um,
but I I, in terms of where do you see those challenges,
I mean, to me was concerning, um, that jet generators could,
took us a few times understand the, the issue
outside was quickly repaired,
but the issues in the building took us a few weeks.
So if you can walk us in through some
of the most common causes as well as, um, um,
the coordination that happens, I know that, uh, specifically
around hot CHA facilities, senior facilities
where this can be a matter of life or death.
Yeah, no, that's a great, great question.
And we're always prioritizing life safety, um,
you know, customers and then our senior, um, customers,
and we also have lists of, uh, uh, customers that are on,
you know, medical assistance
and they, they need the equipment, um, you know,
to be powered up for their, for their life safety as well.
We have, um, I referenced it in my, in my
presentation, we have an OEMC combat employee
that's embedded at the OEMC,
and we work through the OEMC to highlight any critical
customers like, you know, a nursing home
that may be without power.
We have an, an emergency organization that we stand up
for every storm that comes through or every weather event.
And in within that, um, organization, we have a team
of folks that are specifically focused
on our critical customers
and in ensuring that we're tracking
and making sure we're coordinating,
and that we are restoring those customers as quickly
and as safely as possible.
So we, we don't take that lightly.
We don't leave it to chance.
We have people that are specifically focused
and in partnership with, in this case, for the city
of Chicago with the OEMC, to make sure
that we're quickly escalating any of those outages
that may be impacting our life safety customers
or our critical vulnerable CU customers. Dave, mark
And I would just like to add, um, with the CHA,
most locations of the CHA, the equipment is actually owned
by the CHA.
So, uh, we certainly focus on the restoration
of the ComEd infrastructure,
and I believe that specifically the event
that you're referring to, the,
the additional work was actually on the internal, uh, uh,
infrastructure of the CHA.
So that would not have been the ComEd owned in
regard to generators.
Um, we have generators of just about every size, uh,
and as part of storm preparation, we go through each
of those to make sure that we've tested
and that those generators are ready for the summer
and heat applications to try to mitigate,
uh, extended outages.
But again, uh, we'll take, we, we take care
of the restoration and then on customer owned equipment
that, that really does belong then
to the customers. Mm-Hmm.
And, and just quickly a follow up in terms,
and I, I agree, I think this was a, an issue that it started
outside and then it was inside the CHA building.
Um, in terms of the reports that we received for OEMC, um,
I would like to see like a, a report where we can see
the cause as well as what was done so that
that can inform our decisions in the future, uh, in terms
of preventing or what we can done differently per se.
So I know that, um, in terms of like extreme weather, right,
we see what's happening across the country,
and I do, I do what I do think that is important that
with those reports we get to the root cause of the,
of the issue and how we can, uh, expediently get,
uh, restore the power.
Again, in our case, it took us a few weeks where seniors had
to be in a hotel for a few weeks
before, you know, the issue was, uh, addressed in CHA.
And with that might, you know,
so I will definitely appreciate through the chair maybe
what are the protocols of OEMC to give back reports, um,
you know, informing the local officials in terms
of the incident, an incident report
and anything else, recommendations for future occurrences.
And the other question that I had in terms of, um, um, one,
Uh, clarification, so for that through the chair request,
this is for OEMC?
That is correct. That is OMC,
because I understand that is where the, you know,
the full scope of the issue, um, may be.
So this is through OMC.
Um, and then if I might just another question in terms
of affordability
and reliability, I think that, that I think is,
especially again with vulnerable communities, um,
what is the level of investment that we have in terms of,
uh, preparing for the future, uh, preparing for reliable,
sustainable, and green energy, um,
and balancing that with affordability, especially again,
with the same seniors, we're concerned about, um, you know,
just, uh, having, um, having to pay even for utilities
that they did not use for a few weeks.
So that came out in, in, in those meetings as well.
Um, that, that is, I think, something
that is really in the line of a lot of users,
especially those low income.
I think there's a, um, $93 million
or so that is used for, um, subsidies or, or relief.
Um, just wanna see in terms of
what is the need versus what is available.
Yeah, no, that's another great question.
And I can assure you that, you know, everything we do,
we put our customers, especially our most vulnerable
customers and our customers
that need assistance at the center of everything.
Um, but I, I just wanna reinforce Alderman, um,
in your last question.
You know, we also, we just
because the, the customer owned equipment is becomes the,
you know, the last to sometimes be replaced.
We have, for instance, for the CHA,
we have account managers that'll be on the ground working
with the CHA, um, representatives to ensure
that we can do whatever we can
to support those repairs as well.
You know, I've, I've been, when I was in the, in the field
as an engineer, uh, testing engineer,
I was in multiple restorations involving CHA buildings.
And I can assure you, we don't, we don't just leave
because that's not our equipment.
We are there till those customers are, you know, restored
and our customers are back, you know,
to a reliable, uh, uh, service.
But I'll let, um, Melissa elaborate on, on an answer
for your second question.
So Alderman, you used the keyword in
your question and that was balance.
And, um, you're right, we, we try to take a look at
what regulatory requirements we have,
what service requirements we have, and,
and the overall mission is to make sure
that we are delivering power reliably,
safely, and affordably.
Um, and there is, uh, you know, investments
that are required to advances to a, um, an environment
that's clean and,
and also benefiting all of our customers with
that additional investment, you know, comes across.
And that's why we try to make sure there's programs
that are available for people who need assistance
because people need assistance in different ways.
There's a variety of programs,
but one of the things that we did do, um, in, in our filing
that we made with the ICC is make sure that we smooth out,
you know, the, the, uh, requirement, um, for the investments
that we need to make so that it could be spread over a, uh,
a longer period to smooth that in for customers.
Um, that was what we've got in front of the, uh, that's
what we have in, in front
and that's what we propose to do for, for
that revenue, uh, change.
However, um, programs are available
because we know that people will still need assistance.
Um, I think you may have been out when I was talking to, um,
alderman Martin about the filing we made for a low, um,
income discount that we're proposing as well,
because based upon customer's income, they will be able
to get discounts on their, uh, bill and,
and we're waiting for the response of that
that just got filed in March.
So it'll take some months to
get through the approval of that.
Um, but it will really be another, uh, option for customers.
And I often refer to it as portfolio
of different options customers have,
whether it's deferring their,
their payment in arrearages over 12 months,
getting on a budget bill, getting assistance for direct, um,
grants to, to offset their,
their amounts getting on arrearage programs, um,
or, you know, when this is approved, um,
a discount on their bill.
Thank you. Um, thank you.
Um, Madam Chair, I think just in terms of both reliability
with extreme weather coming as well as affordability,
I think that there's a lot of, uh, um, people in or,
and across the city in real dire need of assistance.
So just, you know, something
that maybe we can work again
through the chair. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Um, one more question from me.
Um, wondering if you all could talk about
or discuss any, uh, backlogs
or lags on some of the connections
or interconnections with the kind of PJM network
and some of the efforts you're making
to streamline those connections to meet some
of the emissions, uh, reduction goals?
Another, another great question. Uh, you know, we stood
Up nothing but nothing but
good questions in this committee.
No, you're, this is great.
You know, it really gives us the opportunity to share
with you, you know, our vision, our mission, and,
and you know, what we're about.
Um, we stood up a team specifically to ensure
that we were in compliance and, you know,
and meeting all of the requirements of CJ when it came
to the interconnection, uh, process.
And I'll let Mark, uh, elaborate to give you an idea of,
you know, the breadth, the extent of the, of the team,
and then how we're performing to those, uh, goals, mark.
So in regard to interconnections, uh, there's actually,
uh, I'll say, uh, two different interconnections, uh,
uh, chair head and you had mentioned PJM, which is
specifically in regard to transmission
scale interconnections.
And, um, there's certainly a large queue
of interconnections that are happening,
and we're part of the, uh, PJM, uh, network, uh, part
of the transmission, uh, operator, PJM,
and we're in the western part of that network.
And certainly there is a large queue of interconnections
and renewables that are in that queue.
Um, Before we have an opportunity
to move forward with even agreements
or contracts, studies are performed at the federal level
with PJM in order to go ahead
and determine what's, what's required, how
that queue is managed.
And so to a large degree, we first work with our, uh,
regulator, which is again, uh, at the federal level of how
to process those queues.
Um, FERC is going through reform literally this year to try
to unclog in particular the queue
that has been built up in PJM.
We certainly, what we are doing at Comm Ed is working
with them to get an understanding of what's in that queue,
what's going to be, uh, coming through, trying to get ahead
of working with those developers in advance,
and then certainly working to expedite what we can in terms
of facility studies, getting back to the developers, uh,
working with those developers
and meeting, uh, reasonable commitment dates.
And what I will say is that the commitment dates
that we have signed off on in our agreements
with our developers, we've met those commitment dates.
Certainly when you're dealing with transmission sorts
of infrastructure changes, some of those may take years.
Um, so that's on the, uh, on the federal level,
on the transmission grid scale, uh, we also have a,
an ever increasing interconnection queue
that is more on the distribution level.
And that's, uh, typically our solar interconnections.
And on that end, uh,
we are specifically seeing large growth in terms
of year over year, uh, percentages of new penetration,
of distributed energy resources, the majority
of those being, uh, solar.
Um, last year we had, uh, the most we've seen ever
and, uh, we're already on pace to see more
of those coming in 2024, specifically in Chicago.
Uh, there were in 2022, about 1100 applications.
Last year there were 1500 or so applications, rough amount.
And, uh, this year we're already on pace to see, uh, that
exceeded specifically in the city of Chicago, majority
of those being, again, solar.
Uh, in regard to timeliness, there's rules that govern,
uh, turnaround time that set through, uh,
the Illinois Commerce Commission and CGE Law by all metrics.
We've exceeded all of those.
And our target is to continue to improve the efficiency
of those applications.
And we, uh, uh, you know, the teams have done a great job
of also trying to automate as much as we can.
'cause many of these solar applications,
frankly, are just rooftop.
And it's, and it's items that we can process quickly.
Uh, the vast majority of those actually get processed in,
uh, in a day or two.
Uh, but we are doing everything we can in order
to exceed the requirements that are set, uh,
through the state law
and those that are exceptions to where they're larger sorts
of, uh, installations.
Again, we work with the developers
and the customers directly to try to, um, make sure
that we are meeting the dates as to when, uh,
they're, they're required.
No, that's a long-winded answer,
but, uh, there's, there's many different, different
Types of things. It was very, it was very helpful.
I,
and maybe I'd ask kind of one follow up question.
And this could be, this could be through the chair.
'cause I'm, especially
as you talk about the transmission side, um,
I feel like I need a diagram.
I'm Trying to, um, so I'm wondering, uh,
when you talk about the transmission side, um, right.
For the, um, connections
and thinking about it would be helpful.
So I'll say through the chair request.
So this is something maybe you guys can get
to us afterwards, if there's a, a diagram
or kind of a flow chart to show the, the federal body,
right, like the kind of the regulation piece.
So should we talk about that broader network
and as the, you talked about the Q management really being
basically out of your hands, uh,
we're a large part of it, right?
Being out of your hands, looking at the federal oversight
for kind of the broader PJM network,
it would be helpful just for understanding, um,
if you had some way, uh, I don't know if there's a, a chart
or a visible way to kind of understand a little bit how
that flow works and, and where you guys have a part in it.
I don't know if that's possible.
It doesn't have to be pretty.
No, we'll, we'll follow up on that, on that request.
Okay. Um, that's it for me on questions.
Um, I'll offer it to any remaining committee members.
Alright. Um, so having no more questions,
that concludes the items before the committee today.
Um, I will send out any answers to questions
that were not answered during
today's meeting through the chair.
Um, and I would just like to thank our guests from CommEd,
our department representatives
and commissioners for being here today
and providing some valuable insight into our power grid.
And with there being no further business
before the committee may have a motion to adjourn.
All right. Alder Lawson.
So moves, um, we got our time. All right.
1236, hearing no objections.
So ordered the meeting on the committee on Environmental
Protection Energy is now adjourned.
Thank you.