Illinois families are going electric — for free

Jean Gay-Robinson said she ​“cried tears of joy” when utility ComEd switched all the polluting gas-fired equipment in her Chicago home to modern electric versions, at no cost to her. As a retiree on a fixed income, she is relieved that she’ll likely never have to buy another appliance, her energy bills are lower, and her home feels safer. ​“I don’t have to worry about gas blowing up or carbon monoxide, that kind of nonsense,” she said.

Gay-Robinson is among the hundreds of people who have benefited from a provision of Illinois’ 2021 clean-energy law that allows electric utilities to meet energy-conservation mandates in part by outfitting low-income households with electric appliances that reduce their bills — even though such overhauls actually increase, rather than decrease, electricity use.

Such policies are rare nationwide, but the approach could be a tool to help keep building decarbonization rolling as the Trump administration kills federal incentives for home electrification.

Modern electrical appliances — like induction stoves, electric dryers, and heat pumps that warm and cool spaces — are generally much more energy-efficient than their fossil-fueled counterparts. That means electrifying appliances cuts the amount of fossil fuels burned, even in places where gas and coal plants feed the power grid, said Nick Montoni, senior program director of policy and markets at the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center at North Carolina State University. As more renewable energy comes online, the emissions linked to electrical appliances decrease even further.

Plus, families breathe significantly cleaner indoor air when they change to an electric cooktop, due to the slew of health-harming pollutants emitted by gas stoves.

But replacing appliances is not cheap, and under the Trump administration’s budget law, federal tax credits to help households afford electric heat pumps and water heaters expire in December — seven years earlier than they were previously supposed to. Meanwhile, the future is uncertain for the federally funded Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates (HEAR) program, an Inflation Reduction Act initiative that is administered by states and provides incentives for electric appliances. While some states have already launched their HEAR programs, the Trump administration put the remaining funds on ice earlier this year, and Illinois has not yet received its allotment.

Amid this federal upheaval, state policies that incentivize utilities to pick up the tab for electrification can be especially impactful.

“It’s expensive to electrify because it requires up-front cost,” said Montoni, who formerly served as deputy chief of staff at the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. ​“You have to be able to afford a heat pump, an induction stove, an electric water heater — those aren’t inexpensive. That’s why there are rebates and incentives.”

Illinois utilities commit to electrification

Illinois law requires ComEd to cut electricity consumption each year by an amount equivalent to 2% of the utility’s annual sales in the early 2020s. The state’s other big electric utility, Ameren, faces similar rules in 2029 under a law passed this fall, though in the past it had lower savings mandates.

The 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act specifies that a portion of mandated energy savings — 5% since 2022, 10% starting next year, and 15% after 2029 — can come from electrification. The law also created a formula to convert the amount of energy used by a gas-powered appliance to electricity in kilowatt-hours, allowing an estimate of how much energy is saved by switching from gas to electric.

“So if a home gets partially or fully electrified through an electric energy-efficiency program, the utility claims the savings by calculating the difference between the gas therms in kilowatt-hour equivalents and the kilowatt[-hours] added via the electric measures,” explained Kari Ross, Midwest energy affordability advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Montoni called the policy ​“a pretty interesting mechanism — not unique, but very rare, from what I’ve seen.”

Michigan does have a similar policy, since a 2023 law allows electric and gas utilities to claim electrification as part of their mandatory energy-waste reduction. That legislation also includes a formula for determining the energy-efficiency gains from going electric.

Montoni said allowing electric utilities to count electrification toward their efficiency mandates is an important way to incentivize the shift off fossil fuels, especially in the more than a dozen states where different utilities provide electric and gas service.

When a utility provides both gas and electricity, electrification will typically show overall energy savings, Montoni explained. But when a utility provides only electricity, a formula similar to Illinois’ is needed for the utility to show that it is saving energy, even though a given customer’s electricity use actually increases after electrification.

In northern Illinois, ComEd is the primary electric utility, operating alongside two major gas utilities.

Through its whole-home energy-efficient electrification program, ComEd pays all up-front costs for electric appliances and heat pumps for households earning at or below 80% of the area median income. That initiative has electrified over 700 low-income households since it launched in 2022. The utility also offers rebates for customers of any income for purchasing electric appliances, including geothermal heat pumps.

ComEd’s energy-efficiency plan approved by state regulators says that a quarter of energy savings from electrification must be for low-income households, and the utility can undertake electrification only if it will save a customer money on their energy bills. Michigan’s law includes a similar provision.

“We carefully model each home to make sure proposed upgrades result in energy savings,” said Philip Roy, ComEd’s director of clean energy solutions. ​“Nationally, I’m pretty sure this is one of the more ambitious approaches to electrification, especially for income-eligible customers.”

Gay-Robinson said she has saved some money on her bills since her home’s overhaul last summer, and more importantly, she has reliable appliances to get through Chicago’s extreme weather.

She recommended the ComEd overhaul to a friend, who was suffering through hot summers in poor health and without air-conditioning. Gay-Robinson thinks the electric heating-cooling system her friend got at no cost may have saved her life.

Gay-Robinson said she still prefers cooking with gas, but she’s grateful ComEd provided new cookware along with her electric induction stove. ​“I thought it would be hard to even work the doggone stove. It looks like something out of the future,” she said. ​“But it wasn’t as hard as I thought.”

More retrofits like Gay-Robinson’s are on the way. In an agreement with stakeholder groups and regulators, ComEd has committed to spend a total of $162.3 million over the next four years on electrification and weatherization, which reduces the amount of power needed to heat and cool spaces.

In central and southern Illinois, Ameren provides both gas and electric service.

Ameren has not undertaken ambitious electrification programs like ComEd, and it had lower energy-efficiency mandates until the clean-energy law passed in October brought its targets into parity with ComEd’s. But Ameren will spend $5 million through 2029 helping customers switch from propane-fired heat, which is common in rural areas, to electric heat pumps.

Changing times

Home-electrification retrofits that lower energy bills may be harder to come by in Illinois and beyond in the future, as electricity prices spike due to the record-high cost of securing enough power-generating capacity for the PJM Interconnection regional grid, which spans 13 states.

Since ComEd is only allowed to offer customers new electrical appliances that will reduce their bills, high electricity prices mean some exchanges that worked in the past will no longer qualify; keeping a gas appliance may be cheaper.

“We are in a moment where further iteration is needed” on electrification policies, said Roy, also citing the impacts of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on appliance costs and the looming expiration of federal tax credits for energy-efficient equipment.

Roy noted that with rooftop solar and batteries, a household can tap clean, free electricity to power their appliances. Illinois has robust incentives for low-income households to obtain solar, potentially at no up-front cost.

“We see a lot of momentum with these programs,” said Roy. ​“We think [electrification] will play a key role in not just energy-efficiency goals but broader energy policy. Combining all those elements — traditional energy efficiency, electrification, rooftop solar, battery storage — we have a lot of the tools, we just have to fine-tune the policy structures and incentives so we can accelerate the transition.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Illinois families are going electric — for free on Dec 8, 2025.