By JENNA SCHWEIKERT
Capitol News Illinois
jschweikert@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD — A coalition of 19 manufacturer, business and labor organizations have petitioned to end ongoing workshops studying the future of natural gas in Illinois after a statewide resource adequacy report warned of energy shortages.
In their petition to the Illinois Commerce Commission filed Feb. 24, the coalition called continued efforts to phase out natural gas in Illinois “unreasonable and ill-advised.” The petition cited the report’s finding that Illinois still relies on natural gas, even as the state moves toward renewable energy sources and decarbonization goals.
Conducted by the ICC in partnership with the Illinois Power Agency and Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, the report assessed progress toward the state’s energy and emissions goals and measured the current and projected status of electric reliability.
Illinois aims to move to 100% carbon-free power by 2045, as mandated in the 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act.
The Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, a coalition of over 4,000 manufacturers in the state, is one of the petitioners. IMA President and CEO Mark Denzler said the group brought the petition because the report already answers a key question:
“What that report said is … we have supply-and-demand issues, and that Illinois is going to struggle to provide enough power for our businesses and families,” Denzler said. “Their recommendations are, you know, we need to keep current plants operating.”
The report detailed an increase in demand for power — largely from an influx of data centers — alongside a decrease in supply as the state retires coal and oil to meet CEJA targets. The combination increases energy prices and could lead to electrical grid strain, the report concluded.
But this report is only one piece of the energy puzzle, according to Curt Stokes, an attorney who specializes in utilities cases for the Environmental Defense Fund.
“We think that that study should inform future of gas, but it’s definitely not a reason to terminate future of gas,” Stokes continued. “Future of gas is looking at electrification as one pathway to decarbonize the gas sector, but they’re … also looking at, like, a ton of other technologies.”
Future of gas workshops
In 2023, the ICC issued an order to begin workshops exploring the future of natural gas in Illinois, otherwise known as FOG, to address affordability and assess progress toward CEJA goals.
The order established one series of workshops to identify relevant topics around natural gas and another to gather stakeholder perspectives and proposed legislative and regulatory solutions.
“Utilities were spending a lot of money on infrastructure, and Illinois had just passed its CEJA legislation aiming for a 100% clean energy economy,” Stokes said. “The commission knew that something had to change from the natural gas utilities if Illinois was going to meet that goal.”
What was originally a 16-month process has now stretched into two years, with another 10 months still to go before the final report planned for December.
In an email to Capitol News Illinois, ICC Director of Communications Cayli Baker said the workshops were extended “at the request of stakeholders involved in the process.”
“The extension ideally allows more time to assemble a robust “Pathways Study” that quantifies costs/benefits of various decarbonizations strategies identified in phase 1 of the workshop proceeding,” Baker said.
Denzler said the IMA opposed FOG initially and had limited opportunity to weigh in.
“What’s happened here is the government did things backward,” Denzler said. “What they should have done is the resource adequacy plan that said, here’s our current resources, here’s what resources we need in the future. And then that could determine, is there a future of gas?”
Baker said that while the resource adequacy plan was mandated by CEJA before the FOG proceedings, the two are separate.
“The Future of Gas proceedings are designed to look at decarbonization options specific to the natural gas sector, whereas the resource adequacy report mandated by CEJA examines our electricity system and whether sufficient power will be available to meet electricity demand,” Baker said in the email. “While intertwined these topics are distinct — different pieces of the puzzle.”
Sarah Moskowitz, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, a statewide utility watchdog, said the workshops are an unprecedented opportunity to explore the “stickiest” energy transition topics.
“The future of gas process is the arena to hash those topics out, and there’s no need at this point to foreclose on those discussions,” Moskowitz said.
CUB is an advocate against utility rate hikes, which originally motivated the ICC to approve the Future of Gas proceedings.
The future of natural gas
Without an equal supply in another energy source, Illinois continues to rely on natural gas and cannot phase it out without risking electrical grid strain, according to the resource adequacy report.
Stokes said state agencies and legislators should take the resource adequacy study “very seriously,” but the integrated resource plans mandated by the Clean and Reliable Grid Act will provide a bigger picture of Illinois’ energy resources.
“The municipal and cooperative utilities do their own studies in 2027 but for the investor-owned utilities, that process is going to start later this year,” Stokes said. “We’ll have a much clearer picture when that process is complete, on how we can get enough renewable, clean capacity on the grid in order to meet our capacity needs.”
The IMA supports an “all of the above approach” to energy that includes natural gas and renewable energies, Denzler said.
“We have to have natural gas, we have to keep current plants operating, and we have to invest in new electric generation in order to provide power for homes and businesses,” Denzler said.
Clean energy is not always reliable and doesn’t provide enough energy for certain industries, Denzler added.
“Large industrial companies that use a lot of energy, it’s really hard, if not impossible, to rely completely on renewable,” Denzler said. “It’s the right thing to do … but politically driven deadlines to say, we’re going to close gas facilities and clean coal facilities by a certain date without having enough generation to backfill that hole is a problem.”
The petition’s initial prehearing is scheduled for March 18. There are four workshops left in the FOG proceedings.
“I think the takeaway is there’s definitely a pathway (to decarbonize), and identifying what exactly that path is is what that (resource plan) process is designed to do,” Stokes said.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
