JOLIET, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ComEd and Summit Ridge Energy (SRE) today announced the opening of the 75th community solar development in ComEd’s service territory. The 2.495 megawatt (MW) Speedway Solar project 10 miles south of Joliet, Ill., will provide more than 350 ComEd customers with access to the benefits of solar energy and savings on their energy bills.
“The completion of 75 community solar developments in our service territory is a major milestone on our path to a clean energy future,” said Scott Vogt, vice president of strategy and energy policy at ComEd. “Our collaboration with Summit Ridge Energy is expanding customer access to clean and affordable renewable energy and contributing to the goal of reducing carbon emissions in our communities.”
The Speedway Solar project includes more than 2,300 solar panels and occupies 31 acres on West Sharp Road in Elwood, Ill., about 60 miles southwest of Chicago. It will enable ComEd customers who may not have the roof space or financial means to install their own solar energy generation system to realize the benefits of solar energy. Community solar subscribers earn credits on their monthly utility bills for their portion of the energy produced by the solar project. Energy generated by community solar flows to the electric grid to become part of the overall energy supply.
“We are excited to build on our long-standing partnership with ComEd by developing its 75th community solar project in northern Illinois,” said Mark Raeder, principal at SRE. “We credit ComEd for helping to accelerate the growth of community solar in the region and establishing Illinois as a leader in the fast-growing community solar sector.”
SRE is the largest commercial solar developer and owner-operator in Illinois, with an energy portfolio of more than 250 MWs across the state. More information about SRE’s projects is available at www.srenergy.com.
By the end of this year, ComEd expects to have doubled the number of community solar projects interconnected to its electric grid to more than 150, serving approximately 36,000 customers. ComEd estimates that solar power on its grid, including rooftop and community solar systems, will grow five times from almost 650 MWs today to about 3,300 MWs by 2030.
In 2022, ComEd received a record-setting 19,292 applications from residential, commercial and industrial customers to connect solar panels and other distributed energy resources to ComEd’s grid, a 74 percent increase from the prior year. Sustaining this growth and supporting electric vehicles and electrification of buildings and industries while maintaining grid reliability will require physical and digital infrastructure upgrades as ComEd proposed in the multi-year grid and rate plans that it filed in January with the Illinois Commerce Commission. The plans will strengthen the region’s infrastructure and economy and increase access to the benefits of clean energy and decarbonization under the state’s Climate and Equitable Jobs Act.
ComEd is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation (NASDAQ: EXC), a Fortune 200 energy company with approximately 10 million electricity and natural gas customers – the largest number of customers in the U.S. ComEd powers the lives of more than 4 million customers across northern Illinois, or 70 percent of the state’s population. For more information visit ComEd.com, and connect with the company on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
Launched in 2017, Summit Ridge Energy is the nation’s leading owner-operator of community solar assets. Through dedicated funding platforms, the team acquires pre-operational projects within the rapidly growing solar energy and battery storage sectors. In the past five years, SRE has deployed over $1.6B USD into clean energy assets. SRE has more than 400 MW of PV online and provides solar power to 31,000 homes, with an additional 100,000 homes expected by the end of 2023.
