ComEd Named National Emergency Response Award Recipient for Outstanding Emergency Response Efforts

Awards recognize ComEd’s local recovery, mutual assistance efforts to Midwest energy companies following 2023 summer storm

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- ComEd was recognized by The Edison Electric Institute (EEI), a national association that represents all American investor-owned electric companies, with two awards for its outstanding emergency recovery and assistance efforts in 2023: The Emergency Assistance Award, recognizing ComEd’s assistance efforts restoring service to homes and businesses in the Midwest following the June 2023 derecho, a widespread, fast-moving collection of thunderstorms with destructive winds, and the Emergency Recovery Award, recognizing ComEd for its exemplary recovery efforts in response to severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in Illinois last July.

“As severe weather caused by climate change continues to become more commonplace, ComEd is committed to supporting our customers by building and maintaining one of the country’s most reliable and resilient power grids,” said David R. Perez, ComEd COO. “When severe weather hits, our 6,300 employees step up to ensure that our recovery process is as swift and efficient as possible, and we’re honored that these awards recognize the incredible efforts of the employees who work around-the-clock to maintain the power grid in northern Illinois and lend their expertise to support other utilities around the country.”

“America’s electric companies are committed to serving their customers and communities and to restoring power safely and as quickly as possible following severe storms and other extreme weather events,” said Dan Brouillette, EEI President and CEO. “ComEd’s commitment to restoring service to its customers under challenging conditions following the Illinois tornados last summer deserves recognition. I also commend ComEd for aiding neighboring electric companies in their times of need. I am honored to present ComEd and its storm response team with these well-earned emergency recovery and assistance awards.”

ComEd earned EEI’s Emergency Recovery Award due to its recovery efforts in July 2023, when over 124,000 ComEd customers experienced outages following severe thunderstorms, high winds and six tornados landing in northern Illinois. Over 1,700 ComEd line crews supported the recovery process, totaling over 50,000 man-hours to restore ComEd’s service territory. Thanks to the efforts of ComEd’s team and grid hardening investments, sixty percent of customers were restored within four hours of their outage, and ninety-nine percent of customers were restored within 24 hours of their outage.

EEI’s Emergency Assistance Award was earned by ComEd due to outstanding efforts helping other utilities restore power following the life-threatening derecho that hit the Midwest in June 2023. Severe thunderstorms produced dangerous wind gusts of up to 100 mph, causing significant damage throughout the Midwest. The derecho was particularly impactful to customers in southern Illinois and Indiana. ComEd deployed 368 employees and provided more than 600,000 hours of assistance for two utilities supporting customers in those areas.

The Emergency Recovery Awards are presented to EEI member companies twice a year. Presented to EEI member companies twice a year, the Emergency Response Awards recognize recovery and assistance efforts of electric companies following service disruptions caused by extreme weather or other national events. The winners are chosen by a panel of judges following an international nomination process, and the awards were presented during EEI’s winter Board of Directors and CEO meeting on January 10, 2024. These awards are just the latest accolades earned by ComEd, and follow the 2023 Reliability One® Outstanding System Reliability Award, presented to ComEd by PA Consulting in November of 2023. This award recognized the investment ComEd has made to harden its system and bring greater reliability to customers during severe weather and other events.

Since it began its smart grid investments, ComEd and its more than 6,300 employees have helped customers avoid more than 19 million outages, saving more than $3.3 billion in outage-related costs.

ComEd is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation (NASDAQ: EXC), a Fortune 250 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.

EEI is the association that represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies. Our members provide electricity for nearly 250 million Americans, and operate in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. As a whole, the electric power industry supports more than 7 million jobs in communities across the United States. In addition to our U.S. members, EEI has more than ​70 international electric companies, with operations in more than 90 countries, as International Members, and hundreds of industry suppliers and related organizations as Associate Members.

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Source: ComEd