Low Income Discount Recovery is the only line on a ComEd residential bill that is exactly the same on a 953 kilowatt hour month and a 1,518 kilowatt hour month.
It is $1.35. It does not move with usage, it does not move with the weather, and using less electricity will not reduce it by a cent.
What it cost on two real bills
| Bill | Usage | Filed amount | Printed |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 2026 billing period | 953 kWh | $1.35 flat | $1.35 |
| June 2026 billing period | 1,518 kWh | $1.35 flat | $1.35 |
There is no arithmetic column because there is no arithmetic. The filed value on ComEd's 3rd Revised Informational Sheet No. 74 is a flat monthly amount per residential customer, applicable from the April 2026 monthly billing period through March 2027.
Before that, from February 2026 through March 2026, it was $1.22. It went up 11 percent in April.
A business pays ten times this, and a large one pays 375 times
The same sheet publishes three amounts, and this is the part no single bill can show you.
| Customer group | Feb to Mar 2026 | Apr 2026 to Mar 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| Residential | $1.22 | $1.35 |
| Nonresidential, highest demand under 10 MW last year | $12.20 | $13.50 |
| Nonresidential, highest demand at least 10 MW last year | $457.50 | $506.25 |
The relationship is exact in both windows. The small commercial amount is ten times the residential amount, and the large commercial amount is 375 times it. That ratio is our own arithmetic on the filed figures, and it holds to the cent in both periods, which means it is a deliberate structure rather than a coincidence of rounding.
A large industrial ComEd customer pays just over six thousand dollars a year on this one line.
What the filed tariff says it is for
Rider LID does two separate things, and its applicability section splits them in one sentence. The Low-income Discount is applicable to Low-income Qualified Customers. The Low-income Discount Recovery is applicable to all retail customers.
In other words, one group receives and everyone pays. The $1.35 is your share of funding a discount somebody else receives.
The rider gives effect to the ICC's Low-income Discount Rate Study Report of December 15, 2022, conducted under Section 9-241 of the Public Utilities Act, and was most recently amended under ICC Docket 24-0163.
The discount it funds is larger than most people assume
Here is the thing the bill will never tell you, and the reason this page exists.
A Low-income Qualified Customer is defined in the rider as a residential retail customer with a household income up to and including 300 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. That is a far higher ceiling than most people picture when they read the words low income.
Qualifying customers are placed in one of five tiers, and the discount is applied to their Total Company Bill, not to one component of it. The filed percentages for the February 2026 through March 2027 effective period:
| Tier, household income as percent of FPL | Single family, no electric heat | Multi family, no electric heat | Single family, electric heat | Multi family, electric heat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1: 0 to 50% | 80% | 67% | 76% | 58% |
| Tier 2: over 50 to 100% | 60% | 21% | 53% | 6% |
| Tier 3: over 100 to 150% | 31% | 5% | 25% | 5% |
| Tier 4: over 150 to 200% | 6% | 5% | 5% | 5% |
| Tier 5: up to 300% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 5% |
A single family household without electric heat below half the poverty level has 80 percent taken off its entire electricity bill. Even at the top tier, out to 300 percent of the federal poverty level, there is a filed minimum discount of 5 percent.
How the percentages are set, which explains their shape
The discount is not a round number chosen for presentation. The rider computes it from a target.
The formula sets each percentage so that a typical qualifying household in that delivery class and tier spends no more than a fixed share of its income on electricity. The filed term is the Energy Burden Rate, and it is 3 percent for a delivery class without electric space heating and 6 percent for one with it.
That single pair of numbers explains the whole table. The percentages fall as income rises because a household with more income reaches the 3 or 6 percent target with a smaller discount. They are higher for single family than multi family because single family bills are larger. And they bottom out at the filed 5 percent minimum rather than going to zero.
There is one more constraint. The discount is capped so that enough of the bill remains to cover Non-Bypassable Charges. A qualifying household does not get to a zero bill regardless of tier.
How someone actually gets it
The rider names the route. A Local Administering Agency is defined as an agency administering the Low-income Home Energy Assistance Program, the federal LIHEAP programme managed in Illinois by the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
The discount appears on a qualifying customer's bill as a separate line item designated the Low-income Discount, in the section of the bill dealing with taxes and other charges or credits. That is the same part of the bill where the recovery charge sits, so on a qualifying account both lines are visible together.
If you are reading this because you saw Low Income Discount Recovery on your own bill and your household is under 300 percent of the federal poverty level, the discount is a different line from the one you were looking at, and your LIHEAP administering agency is where it starts.
Can it be avoided?
No.
The recovery half of Rider LID states that it is applicable to all retail customers. It is a flat monthly amount attached to the account rather than to consumption, which makes it the one line on the bill that no amount of efficiency, solar, battery or load shifting will reduce.
For a nonresidential customer near the 10 MW boundary there is a real consequence buried in the customer group definitions. The bracket is set by the highest demand established during the previous calendar year. Crossing 10 MW once moves an account from $13.50 a month to $506.25 a month on this line for the following year. That is a $5,913 annual step change triggered by a single demand interval, and it sits alongside the more familiar reasons to care about a demand peak.
What this page was checked against
Both. The applicability split, the 300 percent FPL definition, the tier bands, the energy burden rates, the non-bypassable charge floor and the LIHEAP enrolment route are quoted from Rider LID, Sheets No. 498 through 501 of ComEd's filed Schedule of Rates. The amounts and the discount percentages are the filed values on the 3rd Revised Informational Sheets No. 73 and 74, effective March 18, 2026. The residential amount is confirmed by two unrelated bills.
The 1 to 10 to 375 ratio is ours, computed from the filed amounts.
The other lines on the same bill are covered in every line on a ComEd bill, explained.
What is Low Income Discount Recovery on my ComEd bill?
It is the charge that funds ComEd's Low-income Discount, filed under Rider LID. The discount goes to qualifying households. The recovery charge is applicable to all retail customers, which is why it is on your bill whether or not you qualify.
How much is it?
For residential customers it is a flat $1.35 a month from the April 2026 billing period through March 2027. It was $1.22 in February and March 2026. Nonresidential customers pay $13.50, or $506.25 if their highest demand last year reached 10 MW.
Why is it the same every month?
Because it is a flat amount per customer rather than a rate per kilowatt hour. It does not vary with usage, so it is identical on a low month and a high month.
Who qualifies for the Low-income Discount itself?
A residential customer with household income up to and including 300 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. Discounts run from a filed minimum of 5 percent up to 80 percent of the total bill for the lowest tier in a single family home without electric heat, and enrolment runs through the local agency administering LIHEAP.
Can I avoid Low Income Discount Recovery?
No. It applies to all retail customers and it is a flat monthly charge, so it is unaffected by usage, by solar, by battery storage or by switching electricity supplier.