Looking to save energy at home? Illinois has top-ranked programs that can help you.

Across the country, utilities, governments, and nonprofits have created programs to help Americans save energy by installing more energy efficient appliances, electrifying their homes to get off gas, and weatherizing their homes. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) released its annual round-up of exemplary energy efficiency programs across the U.S. Three of the stand-out programs were from Illinois. 

Elevate’s program for home electrification 

Electrifying your home, by replacing polluting gas appliances with electric ones, is a critical way to support the clean energy transition. And, the high cost of gas service delivery in northern Illinois means that just removing a gas bill saves over $500 annually for consumers, not to mention down the line savings from increased efficiency. 

In the ACEEE’s beneficial home electrification category, one exemplary program was Elevate’s fossil fuel free homes program. The program works to electrify homes in census tracts that are 80% or less of the median area income, and provides support throughout the process of electrification. It also helps beneficiaries access utility funds and supplements them with grant money in order to fully cover the cost of electrification. 

Utilities’ program for energy saving devices and weatherization

Another Illinois program, the Home Energy Solutions program (HES), administered by Peoples Gas, Nicor Gas, North Shore Gas, ComEd, and Resource Innovations, was named the best program in the country for residential programs that specifically serve low-income households. 

The program offers special services for low-income households in northern Illinois, including a home energy advisor and weatherization services. Depending on eligibility, the program can help you get free or low-cost energy saving devices, like smart thermostats. 

Programs that support energy savings make a clean energy future possible

The more we collectively reduce our energy consumption, the easier it is to power our lives using clean, renewable sources. 

And it’s not just homes that can be made more energy efficient. ComEd’s Strategic Energy Management program was highlighted as the best program in the nation for industrial energy efficiency. The program serves industrial customers and helps them identify and implement low-cost measures to improve energy efficiency in their facilities. The program has saved a cumulative 172 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy since 2015. Given that the industrial sector is the number one energy consumer in the state, cutting industrial consumption means we can retire polluting power plants sooner.

Small, individual improvements to energy efficiency can add up to a lot. The energy saved over the lifetime of the efficiency improvements made in Illinois in 2022 is enough to power 2.35 million U.S. households for a year. These highlighted programs are part of why Illinois ranks number one in the nation for growth in energy savings between 2005-2022.