illinois competition
Deregulation and Competition in Illinois
The Illinois Electric Service Customer Choice and Rate Relief Law ("Customer Choice Act"), enacted in December of 1997, was landmark legislation that restructured the electricity industry in the State of Illinois. Illinois was among several states in the nation that joined the federal government in a regulatory paradigm for electric utilities, allowing a shift from the traditional cost of service regulation to a greater reliance on market forces to discipline the price of power supplies. The General Assembly embraced the restructuring model as a more economically efficient model. The Customer Choice Act was designed to provide greater choice and additional value through innovative products and services tailored to the individual retail customer while, at the same time, maintaining or enhancing system reliability.
The Customer Choice Act required Illinois electric utilities to unbundle the elements of electricity service, creating a competitive generation market for energy supply, while the delivery of the energy - transmission and distribution - remained regulated. This restructuring comprised two parts. First, the Customer Choice Act permitted Illinois electric utilities to divest their generation assets to affiliated and unaffiliated entities and allowed alternative retail suppliers to compete with the incumbent utility to sell power to retail customers. Supplier choice for commercial and industrial customers was phased-in from October 1999 through October 2000.
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, MC Squared Energy Services (mc2) is licensed and certificated by the Illinois Commerce Commission as an Alternative Retail Electricity Supplier (ARES) to serve commercial and industrial customers with electricity supply services in the ComEd service territory. mc2 serves thousands of customers who want to reduce their cost of power as well as their exposure to the potential volatility of pricing in the electric market. mc2 products enable customers to capitalize on advantageous power purchasing strategies to efficiently manage electricity supply costs. Working with their full service wholesale trading partner, Wolverine Trading LLC, mc2 is positioned to offer innovative and reliable energy supply to its customers.