Illinois Commission Approves Ameren’s Rate Plan to Spur EV Adoption, Charger Installations

The Illinois Commerce Commission on Aug. 3 granted Ameren Illinois Company’s request to create an electric vehicle charging program that offers new optional rate structures to incentivize EV adoption and install charging stations. The tariff, titled “Rider Optional Electric Vehicle Charging Program,” is designed to encourage charging during specific off-peak periods. This initiative would support the state’s goal of getting one million EVs on the road by 2030.

The program has six target groups: charging for residential homes, multi-facilities, education facilities, transit facilities, corridor facilities, and non-corridor facilities. The initiative establishes preferred and non-preferred charging periods, allowing customers who charge during the preferred period to avail a discount in comparison to standard delivery charges. The move is expected to incentivize customers to charge their vehicles late at night and into the early morning and benefit from electric bill savings.

Residential customers will receive an EV bill credit of $4.00 per month, and will pay $0.02 less per kWh of power delivered to chargers during summer and $0.01 less during non-summer when they charge during the preferred charging period of 11PM to 7AM. However, if they charge during the non-preferred period of 11AM to 7PM, they will face a $0.65 charge per kWh applied to the highest hour of usage.

At transit, educational, and multi-facilities, where less than 10 percent of the installed kilowatts are for non-EV supply equipment and for providing charging services, there would be a monthly billing credit of $15 for the first 12 months. As an incentive to charge off-peak, a summer period credit of $0.023 per kWh and a non-summer period credit of $0.012 per kWh would be awarded. To disincentivize charging during peak hours, the facility would incur an additional charge of $0.46 per kWh applied to the highest hour of usage.

For non-residential customers— the other five target groups—who install new EV charging infrastructure, no cost will be imposed for off-peak charging. For peak-time charging, cost will be based on maximum demand in kW occurring during the period. Customers will be required to submit information regarding how they plan to charge the public in order to recover costs for the buildout project.

The company is required to submit information about its customer  education  expenses, copies of customer education marketing collateral, findings from its evaluation of customer education and outreach efforts, and findings from an independent evaluation of the program.

Ameren Illinois is a subsidiary of Ameren Corporation.