Does ComEd still have net metering in 2026 — and how does it work now?

Supply-only netting is the rule for every ComEd system interconnected on or after January 1, 2025: electricity you export earns credits against the supply portion of your bill — the Price to Compare, 10.103¢/kWh from October 1, 2026 through May 2027 — but not against delivery charges. Full retail net metering, which credited supply and delivery together, closed to new customers at the end of 2024.

Three buckets make up a ComEd bill: supply (the electricity itself), delivery (wires, poles, meters), and taxes and fees. Exported solar now touches only the first one. Solar you use directly is different — it avoids both supply and the usage-based part of delivery, because you simply buy fewer kilowatt-hours. That asymmetry is the single most important thing to understand about Illinois solar economics in 2026, and it is why self-consumption matters more than it used to.

Fixed charges behave differently again. ComEd's net metering FAQ states that the customer charge and standard metering charge "are not affected by net metering credits" — they are flat monthly amounts, not per-kilowatt-hour charges, so a kilowatt-hour credit has nothing to subtract from them. On ComEd's Hourly Pricing and Time-of-Day rates the credit works on a different basis, which is covered below.

Prefer to skip the explainer? Answer four quick questions and get the rules for your specific situation instead.

Generally yes, and for a long time. ComEd's net metering FAQ states that customers who interconnected by December 31, 2024 keep full-retail netting — credits across supply, delivery, and taxes and fees — for the life of the solar energy system, which ComEd puts at 30 years. The rules changed for new interconnections; they did not reach back and strip existing ones.

Buying a home with existing panels? The interconnection date decides which regime applies, so it is a document worth verifying before closing rather than after — and there is a form the new account holder has to file.

As credits in the supply section, not as a payment. Per ComEd's FAQ, fixed-price customers who interconnected from 2025 on can choose kWh credits or monetary credits, and those credits do not expire. Customers buying at hourly prices receive a monetary credit based on the price of power during the hours they actually exported.

The practical read: in high-production months you bank credits, in winter you draw them down (how Illinois panels produce through the winter), and the balance carries forward rather than resetting. That is a meaningful improvement over the legacy annual reset — even though the legacy credit itself was worth more per kilowatt-hour. Your monthly bill will still show the customer charge, standard metering, and the delivery components exports do not touch.

One number to watch: the residential Price to Compare is 10.103¢/kWh from October 1, 2026 through May 2027, per ComEd's confirmation reported by the Citizens Utility Board — down from 10.399¢ this summer. Credit value moves with it. The transmission part of that price is scheduled to change in January 2027, and the next summer price starts June 1, 2027. What the October reset changed: our ComEd October 2026 rate reset page.

The kWh-versus-monetary choice is recorded on ComEd's Net Metering Election Form, which is handled as part of your interconnection paperwork rather than published as a standalone download. ComEd does publish separate bill explainers for fixed-pricing customers under each option. Ask your installer which election was made on your behalf, and get the answer in writing.

More than most homeowners expect, and there are now three rates to know instead of two. ComEd's standard fixed price credits exports in kilowatt-hours unless you elect a monetary credit. Hourly Pricing credits them as a dollar value set by the market price in the hour you exported. Time-of-Day pricing, ComEd's newer option, prices both supply and delivery in four daily windows — and carries an eligibility rule that catches legacy solar owners off guard.

Why a kilowatt-hour credit and a dollar credit behave differently

A kilowatt-hour credit can only reduce a charge that is itself billed per kilowatt-hour. ComEd's net metering FAQ states that the customer charge and standard metering charge "are not affected by net metering credits" — they are flat monthly amounts, so a kWh credit has nothing to subtract from them. A monetary credit is a dollar balance instead, and ComEd's Hourly Pricing materials describe applying it against the cost of the bill, with anything left over carried into the following billing cycle. Both of ComEd's statements are true at once; they describe two different instruments.

Whether that ever produces a $0 bill is a question with a documented answer, a documented counterexample, and a lot of fine print — all of it on our dedicated ComEd Hourly Pricing + solar page, which carries the hour-by-hour mechanics, the capacity charge, and a three-way cost calculator. What matters on this page is narrower: your rate decides the form your credit takes, and the form decides what it can reach.

The Time-of-Day rule that catches legacy solar owners

ComEd's Time-of-Day pricing splits every day into four windows, with the Mid-Day Peak running 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Per CUB's fact sheet on the program, legacy net metering customers — systems interconnected before January 1, 2025 with no Distributed Generation rebate — are not eligible for it, while net metering customers who installed after that date and took a DG or storage rebate may save on it. CUB also notes the rate cannot be paired with Hourly Pricing or an alternative supplier, because those are all supply offerings. If you are weighing a rate switch alongside a solar decision, treat them as two separate decisions and confirm your own eligibility with ComEd.

None of this is a savings promise. It is ComEd's published mechanics, and whether your roof, your usage, and your rate line up is exactly what an honest review checks.

No. The value arrives as credits against your ComEd charges — never as a check and never as income. Post-2024 fixed-price customers may elect a monetary bill credit rather than a kWh credit, but it still offsets what you owe ComEd. Nobody is being paid by the utility for their roof.

This is where net metering gets confused with Illinois Shines, a genuinely separate program that pays for your system's renewable energy credits — and pays them to your Approved Vendor, not to you. Two different programs, two different mechanisms, both applying to the same system — and neither is a tax credit, since the federal homeowner credit ended December 31, 2025 and Illinois has no state solar tax credit: how Illinois Shines actually works and pays. Confirming your installer is genuinely on that Approved Vendor list is worth doing before you sign — how to verify an Illinois Shines vendor. Ownership matters there too, since customer-owned systems earn a $20/REC adder that changes the math against leasing: lease vs PPA vs buying, compared.

If a salesperson tells you ComEd will "buy back" your power or send an annual true-up check, that is not how the ComEd tariff works, and it is worth treating as a signal about the rest of the pitch — the same goes for dealer fees quietly folded into a loan rather than disclosed upfront. Our quote-vetting checklist and our breakdown of Illinois solar dealer fees cover the other claims worth testing.

Five questions decide almost everything on this page. Your answers stay in your browser until you choose to check eligibility — and the result tells you plainly when the answer is "this doesn't apply to you."

It rewards matching your usage instead of maximizing exports. Exported kilowatt-hours now earn supply-level credits, while self-consumed kilowatt-hours avoid the full retail cost — so the system that pencils best is the one sized to what you actually use, not the biggest one that fits on the roof.

There is no longer a 110% cap. ComEd removed that limit on March 1, 2022, and it appears nowhere in ComEd's current net metering materials. What ComEd publishes today is guidance rather than a ceiling: your system "should be sized to meet some or all of your current or future energy needs." ComEd's materials also contemplate systems that out-produce annual usage, and describe crediting the surplus rather than refusing it. Anyone still quoting a 110% rule at you is working from four-year-old information.

• Start from your own 12 months of usage, available in your ComEd account — not a state average. The roof sets the other limit: what a roof needs to qualify, and whether yours is too shaded.
• The only ceiling a homeowner is likely to meet is procedural, not usage-based: the fast-track Level 1 interconnection path covers systems up to 25 kW of export capacity. ComEd's own net metering application form states there is no nameplate capacity cap on the program itself — only that the system be sized to your current and future energy needs.
• West-facing arrays age well here — late-afternoon production lines up with evening consumption, which is worth more than exporting it.
• Batteries earn their keep differently now — storing midday solar for evening use beats exporting it, though the rebate that funds them carries commitments of its own: is a home battery worth it in Illinois?
• Watch for offers that aren't really a state program — some ComEd-territory pitches now bundle a battery with an electricity-supply contract, and those multi-year agreements aren't compatible with rooftop solar at all: what those contracts actually say.
• Demand a production model built on supply-only rules and your real usage. A generic savings curve is not one. The method is in our guide to how many panels an Illinois home needs. Ask how the panels are rated for storms too: do solar panels survive hail?

You generally do not apply separately. ComEd's materials state that the interconnection application covers net metering enrollment, and participation begins once that application is approved and the Certificate of Completion confirming permission to operate is signed. Your installer normally files it. Your job is confirming it happened — and knowing the deadlines ComEd is working under.

A typical Illinois home system runs through Level 1 expedited review, the fastest of four paths under the state interconnection rule, 83 Ill. Adm. Code Part 466. To qualify, the system must have export capacity of 25 kW or less and nameplate capacity of 50 kW or less — and if export is not limited, nameplate cannot exceed 25 kW — plus be inverter-based and use lab-certified equipment. Essentially every residential rooftop array in ComEd territory clears this comfortably.

What it costs to apply

The Level 1 application fee is $50, published both in the state rule's application form and on ComEd's own smaller-generators page. Part 466 separately sets a standardized Level 1 interconnection cost of $200, and provides that where ComEd's costs exceed that, it recovers the difference through base delivery rates rather than billing you. An optional pre-application report — rarely needed for rooftop solar — costs $300 and must be returned within 20 business days.

The steps, in order

1. Level 1 interconnection application filed with ComEd, with the $50 fee. Stating intent to generate covers net metering enrollment; there is no second application.
2. ComEd confirms the application is complete, then evaluates it against the Level 1 technical screens.
3. Conditional approval — ComEd countersigns, conditional on the electrical inspection, the returned Certificate of Completion, and a successful witness test.
4. Installation and local electrical inspection by your municipality or county — a separate process from ComEd's interconnection review, and worth not conflating: Chicago and Aurora each run their own permitting rules, covered in our Chicago solar permits and Aurora solar permits guides. If you live in an HOA, it can shape where panels go but cannot block them: what an Illinois HOA can and cannot require. Operational testing is limited; the system may not otherwise run before permission to operate.
5. Certificate of Completion submitted to ComEd with verification of the inspection.
6. Meter verified or exchanged so it can measure flow in both directions.
7. Witness test, then ComEd countersigns and returns the Certificate. That signature is permission to operate.

About the disconnect switch

This one is widely misreported in both directions. Part 466 does not flatly require every homeowner to install an external disconnect switch — it says the utility may require the system to be capable of being isolated. Where ComEd does require it, the isolation device must be installed, owned and maintained by you, and for a home connected to a secondary line through a standard self-contained meter, the rule states that ComEd simply removing the meter may satisfy the requirement. Separately, and unconditionally, ComEd's interconnection agreement gives it access to the disconnect and metering equipment at all times, with five business days' notice except in emergencies. Ask your installer what ComEd is requiring at your specific address, in writing, before the equipment order is placed.

You can track application status yourself through ComEd's MyGeneration portal rather than relying on status updates from a salesperson. Two things worth knowing about the meter: it records flow in both directions, and it does not measure your panels' production. Use your installer's monitoring app for that.

Longer than most homeowners realize they can ask about — and shorter than many installers imply. Part 466 puts ComEd on the clock at four separate points in a Level 1 residential interconnection, and the last one is the important one: once your system passes its witness test, ComEd has ten business days to sign and return the Certificate of Completion, and the rule states that the authorization shall not be conditioned or delayed.

Where the clock stops, honestly. Part 466 sets no deadline for ComEd to finish building any interconnection facilities or distribution upgrades a project turns out to need. Most residential rooftop systems need none — but if yours does, that stretch of the timeline is genuinely open-ended, and no page claiming a guaranteed total timeline can back it. That is also why real-world installer estimates of a few weeks between final inspection and PTO are an observation about how it usually goes, not a rule anyone can hold ComEd to.

You have a written escalation path, and it is not "call your installer again." Part 466 contains its own dispute process, and above it sits the Illinois Commerce Commission, which regulates ComEd.

1. Put it in writing to ComEd, naming the deadline you believe has passed. Vague follow-ups get vague answers; a dated reference to a specific rule does not.
2. Request the Part 466 informal process. After written notice, an informal meeting is to be held within 10 business days, with people who can actually decide something in the room. The informal period runs 30 days.
3. File an informal complaint with the ICC — Consumer Services, 1-800-524-0795, or through the ICC's public utility complaint page. This is free, it is the step most homeowners never learn exists, and utilities respond to it.
4. Formal complaint, heard by an Administrative Law Judge, if the informal route fails. Note that the rule puts a clock on you here too — after the informal and arbitration steps conclude, the window to file formally is short.

Fill in the bracketed fields before you send it. This is the rule quoted, not legal advice — and swap the paragraph reference if the deadline you are chasing is one of the earlier ones in the table above.

Keep every document: the application, the conditional approval, the inspection sign-off, the Certificate of Completion, and the date of your witness test. The deadlines in the table above are only useful if you can show when the clock started.

Multiply the kilowatt-hours you export by the supply price, and that is the honest answer for a post-2024 system. At 10.103¢/kWh, exports are worth a real but modest amount — which is precisely why sizing to self-consumption beats sizing to export.

Arithmetic only, at published 2026 ComEd residential rates — not a projection, not a savings estimate, and not a quote. Exports are valued at the residential Price to Compare, 10.103¢/kWh from October 1, 2026 through May 2027. Electricity you use as you generate it is valued at about 16.46¢/kWh — that supply price plus ComEd's standard distribution charge of 6.228¢ and the 0.126¢ distribution tax, for a single-family home without electric heat — because a kilowatt-hour you never buy avoids both. Smaller per-kWh riders and taxes are left out, so the self-use figure runs conservative. Neither figure touches the fixed customer and metering charges, $15.26 + $3.81 = $19.07 a month on the standard single-family non-electric-heat class, broken down in our guide to your electric bill after solar. Curious what a system costs before any of these credits start accruing? See our Illinois solar cost breakdown, and whether the whole system pencils out: is solar worth it in Illinois? What that usage costs on a bill today: the average Illinois electric bill. The transmission part of the supply price is scheduled to change in January 2027.

The system and its status attach to the home, not to you — but the new owner does have one thing to file. ComEd states that someone starting service at a premise that already has solar does not submit a new interconnection or net metering application. They do need to complete ComEd's Ownership/Name Change Form and send it to interconnect@comed.com within 60 days of starting service.

Note where that clock starts: starting service, not closing. A buyer who takes a few weeks to move in and open the ComEd account is working from the account date, and the window is easy to lose track of during a move. ComEd's net metering application form states the stakes plainly: miss the 60 days and net metering terminates on the account. (That form calls the document a DER Facility Assignment Form; ComEd's current FAQ calls it the Ownership/Name Change Form — the 60-day requirement is the same.) The form is linked from ComEd's net metering and interconnection FAQ page.

Keep the interconnection approval and the Certificate of Completion permanently. On a pre-2025 system that paperwork is what proves a buyer is inheriting legacy full-retail netting — a real, transferable asset worth naming in the listing. The broader sale checklist lives in our guide to selling a house with solar in Illinois, and the assessment filing that keeps panels from raising the tax bill is in solar and Illinois property taxes.

Same idea, different math, and the differences are worth knowing if you are comparing quotes across the territory line. ComEd systems interconnected from 2025 on earn supply-only credits; Ameren Illinois credits exports against supply and transmission charges. The legacy tests differ too — ComEd keys on the interconnection date, while Ameren required a Construction Complete form filed in PowerClerk by 5 p.m. CST on December 31, 2024. Part of why Ameren's numbers move differently: why Ameren bills have been climbing too.

That is the comparison, not the full picture. Ameren's own rules — its crediting election, its application path, and its rebate conditions — are covered in full on their own page: Ameren Illinois net metering, explained. For Ameren's largest city: solar panels in Peoria.

ComEd rewrote its net metering tariff, Rider POGNM, effective September 14, 2026. A battery paired with solar may now charge from the panels, the grid or both. A battery connected on or after June 1, 2026 must stay on a time-based supply plan to keep net metering. And from January 1, 2027, a battery with no solar can earn net metering credit.

The supply-plan rule is short in the tariff itself: a battery customer "must take service under a QSP and remain on a QSP" to stay on the net metering rider (Rider POGNM, 4th Revised Sheet No. 295.1). That is a net metering rule, separate from the battery rebate's own rate condition. ComEd's Hourly Pricing or Time of Day Pricing satisfies both.

What these rules mean for a rebated battery: the ComEd battery rebate's grid-charging rules. Solar plus battery, battery only, or a supplier bundle, side by side: the three ways to get a battery.

For solar, nothing. The Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act — Public Act 104-0458, effective June 1, 2026 — left solar export crediting alone: supply-only netting for post-2024 systems and legacy full-retail status for pre-2025 systems both survive it unchanged. For batteries, it opened a door ComEd has now started to walk through. Per CUB, the law obliges utilities to extend net metering to behind-the-meter storage, and ComEd's rewritten net metering tariff took effect September 14, 2026 — the new battery rules are above.

The sequence is the part to get right, because it is where sales pitches run ahead of the rules. For ComEd, the net metering half is now in the tariff: under the rewritten Rider POGNM, a battery with no solar becomes eligible for net metering credit on January 1, 2027. The rebate half is not. Per CUB's September 14, 2026 rundown, ComEd expects its DG rebate to reach standalone storage interconnected on or after June 1, 2026 once that rebate's rules are approved, and its virtual power plant is anticipated in spring 2027. Ameren had not published its storage details as of that rundown, and CUB notes the riders and dates may differ by utility.

The September rewrite retired an older rule. From July 13, 2025 until September 14, 2026, ComEd's tariff required an AC-coupled battery on a net-metered system to be charged only by the on-site solar (Rider POGNM, 1st Revised Sheet No. 294.1). Third-party battery-and-supply bundles work outside net metering entirely, which is exactly what those contracts say.

The rest of what CRGA touched sits next door: storage rebate dollars and their conditions (ComEd's, and the statewide picture), the utility virtual power plant framework (ComEd's and Ameren's), new time-of-use rate requirements for both utilities, the state's nuclear provisions, and a grid-operator study due to the Illinois Commerce Commission at the end of 2026. For the full picture of every incentive that applies in 2026 — Illinois Shines, the rebates, and this page's net metering rules stacked together — see our Illinois solar incentives guide, and the statewide numbers in Illinois solar facts.

Net metering

The arrangement under which electricity you export to the grid earns credits on your utility bill. In Illinois it is governed by 220 ILCS 5/16-107.5 and the utility's own tariff.

Supply-only netting

The crediting rule for ComEd systems interconnected on or after January 1, 2025: exports credit the supply section of the bill, not delivery.

Legacy status

Full-retail net metering retained by systems interconnected on or before December 31, 2024, which ComEd states lasts for the life of the system — 30 years.

Price to Compare

ComEd's published residential supply price, the rate that sets what an exported kilowatt-hour is worth. 10.103¢/kWh from October 1, 2026 through May 2027.

Interconnection

The regulated process of connecting a generating system to the utility's distribution grid. Governed in Illinois by 83 Ill. Adm. Code Part 466.

Level 1 review

The fastest of four interconnection review paths, for inverter-based, lab-certified systems with export capacity of 25 kW or less. Nearly all residential rooftop solar.

Certificate of Completion

The document submitted after installation and inspection. ComEd's countersignature on it is permission to operate.

Permission to operate (PTO)

Utility authorization to actually run the system in parallel with the grid. Until it is granted, the system may not operate.

Witness test

ComEd's inspection of the finished installation. It must occur within 10 business days of commissioning, or it is deemed waived absent good cause.

Isolation device

Equipment allowing the utility to disconnect your system from the grid. Where required, it is installed, owned and maintained by the system owner.

Hourly Pricing (Rate BESH)

ComEd's optional market-following supply rate. Net metering credits on it are calculated as a dollar value at the hourly market price.

Time-of-Day pricing

ComEd's optional rate pricing both supply and delivery in four daily windows, most expensive from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Per CUB, legacy net metering customers are not eligible, and it cannot be combined with Hourly Pricing or an alternative supplier.

Rider POGNM

ComEd's net metering tariff — Parallel Operation of Retail Customer Generating Facilities with Net Metering. It is the document that governs crediting. Rewritten effective September 14, 2026 to allow grid charging for solar-paired batteries, require a time-based supply plan for batteries connected on or after June 1, 2026, and extend net metering to batteries with no solar from January 1, 2027.

Qualifying Supply Product (QSP)

ComEd's Hourly Pricing, its Time of Day Pricing, or a retail supplier's time-of-use product. Since September 14, 2026, a battery connected on or after June 1, 2026 must stay on one to keep net metering.

CRGA

The Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, Public Act 104-0458, effective June 1, 2026. It did not change solar export crediting; it did require net metering for behind-the-meter storage, which ComEd's rewritten tariff extends to batteries with no solar from January 1, 2027.