ComEd's Hourly Pricing lets you pay for electricity at its wholesale market price, which changes every hour. Power is usually cheap overnight and more expensive in the early evening. If you can use more electricity when it's cheap, or have a home battery or electric car that does it for you, Hourly Pricing can lower your bill. The trade-off is that a few hours a year can be very expensive.
ComEd has offered Hourly Pricing since 2007, and about 70,000 homes use it. ComEd's tariff calls it Rate BESH. This page is part of our guide to ComEd rate plans.
How Hourly Pricing works
Every ComEd bill has two parts: supply, the electricity itself, and delivery, ComEd carrying it to your home. Hourly Pricing changes only the supply part. Instead of a fixed price, you pay each hour's price from PJM, the wholesale market where ComEd buys electricity for its customers. ComEd passes that price through without a markup.
ComEd publishes the prices live at hourlypricing.comed.com, along with the next day's forecast. You can also sign up there for alerts by text, email, or phone call when prices run high.
When electricity is cheap and when it's expensive
Average hourly price, September 2025–August 2026, in cents per kWh
| Time of day | Average price |
|---|---|
| Midnight to 5 am | About 2 |
| 5 am to 4 pm | About 3 to 5 |
| 4 pm to 8 pm | About 5 to 8 |
| 8 pm to midnight | About 3 to 5 |
Counting every per-kWh charge, a kWh on Hourly Pricing cost less than one on the fixed rate in every period on average. In the most expensive tenth of hours, especially from 1 to 9 pm, it cost more.
A kWh, or kilowatt-hour, is the unit your electricity is measured in. Running a 1,000-watt space heater for one hour uses 1 kWh.
Prices are lowest in the middle of the night and highest from about 5 to 8 pm, when people come home and turn things on. Summer evenings and very cold winter mornings bring the biggest swings. Prices even dip below zero now and then, most often overnight.
The risk: price spikes
Most hours cost a few cents. A few cost far more. Between September 2025 and August 2026, the hourly price topped 50 cents per kWh in 22 hours and $1 in 7, and reached $1.45 at its highest. Then, in September 2026, one evening hour reached $2.38.
ComEd notes that hourly prices topped $1 per kWh in only 15 hours between 2019 and 2024, and that the wholesale market caps the price at $3.70 per kWh. Spikes are rare. But a spike that lands while you're running the dryer or charging a car can wipe out weeks of savings.
If that worries you, ComEd's Time-of-Day Pricing rewards the same habits with prices set a year in advance, so there are no spikes. A home battery also takes most of the risk away, because it can run your home through expensive hours.
What each kWh costs on Hourly Pricing
Add up every per-kWh charge on an Hourly Pricing bill and each kWh costs that hour's price plus about 10.2 cents for delivery, other supply charges, and taxes. With Delivery Time-of-Day Pricing, the add-on drops to about 7.3 cents overnight and rises to about 15.8 cents from 1 to 7 pm.
For comparison, each kWh on ComEd's fixed rate costs about 19.2 cents at any hour. So an overnight kWh at a typical 2 cents costs about 12 cents on Hourly Pricing, or about 9 cents with Delivery Time-of-Day.
How we calculated these: Chicago taxes and fees, current ComEd rates as of October 1, 2026, for a single-family home without electric heat. We leave out two charges, the Carbon-Free Energy Resource Adjustment and the Zero Emission Standard, because they're scheduled to end May 31, 2027. The figures also leave out the capacity charge, below, because it doesn't depend on how many kWh you use.
Your bill on Hourly Pricing
Hourly Pricing bills show a few lines a fixed-rate bill doesn't:
- Electricity Supply Charge. Every kWh you used, times that hour's price, added up. The bill shows no rate beside it, because the price changed every hour.
- Capacity Charge. Your share of the cost of keeping enough power plants ready for the year's highest demand. ComEd bases it on your usage during the hours of peak demand on PJM's system and on ComEd's the previous summer, and resets it each June. It's charged per kW: currently $10.10 per kW per month. A home whose peak usage in those hours averaged 1.6 kW pays about $16 a month. Using less on the hottest summer afternoons lowers next year's charge.
- Transmission Services Charge and Miscellaneous Procurement Components Charge. Small per-kWh charges for high-voltage transmission and the cost of buying power, currently 1.075 and 0.226 cents per kWh.
- Purchased Electricity Adjustment. A small monthly credit or charge that keeps what customers pay in line with what ComEd's power actually cost.
Delivery charges, taxes, and fees are the same as on any ComEd plan.
Will Hourly Pricing save you money?
ComEd says Hourly Pricing customers have saved an average of 19% on the supply part of their bills, from 2007 through 2026. Your result depends on when your household uses electricity.
Hourly Pricing tends to work well if you:
- Have a home battery
- Have an electric car and charge it overnight
- Have solar on legacy net metering (see below)
- Can move laundry, the dishwasher, and other big loads to the evening or overnight
- Don't mind checking prices, or setting up alerts, on very hot or very cold days
It's probably not right if you're home all day running central air through the afternoon, don't want to think about when you use electricity, or can't absorb an occasional expensive month.
ComEd says most customers who would save on Hourly Pricing would save more by also adding Delivery Time-of-Day Pricing, which lowers delivery charges outside 1 to 7 pm.
An example. Suppose you charge an electric car with 75 kWh overnight, from 10 pm to 5 am, when hourly prices average about 2.4 cents. On Hourly Pricing, that charge costs about $9.50, or about $7.30 with Delivery Time-of-Day. On the fixed rate, the same 75 kWh costs about $14.40.
Hourly Pricing with a home battery
A battery makes Hourly Pricing easier to live with. It charges when power is cheap, from the grid overnight or from your solar panels, and runs your home through the expensive evening hours, so you don't have to change your routine. It also shields you from most spikes.
With a battery, Hourly Pricing isn't always the best plan:
- If your solar has legacy net metering, we typically recommend Hourly Pricing with Delivery Time-of-Day.
- For most other homes, we typically recommend Time-of-Day Pricing.
Home batteries and ComEd rate plans →
Hourly Pricing with solar
Net metering is how ComEd credits you for the extra electricity your solar panels send to the grid.
- Legacy net metering (solar enrolled before 2025 that didn't receive a ComEd solar rebate): you keep your legacy status on Hourly Pricing. Your credits are in dollars, and ComEd says they don't expire. Hourly Pricing with Delivery Time-of-Day is what we typically recommend for these homes.
- Solar connected since January 1, 2025: each kWh you send to the grid is credited at that hour's supply price.
How ComEd net metering works →
How to sign up, and how to leave
- You need a smart meter that records your usage hour by hour. Most ComEd homes have one.
- Compare first. The Rate Comparison tool in your ComEd online account estimates what you'd pay from your own past usage.
- Enroll online at hourlypricing.comed.com or by calling ComEd at 888-202-7787.
- You can leave at any time. Leaving takes one to three billing cycles, and you can't rejoin Hourly Pricing for 12 months.
If you're a Certasun customer or thinking about solar or a battery, we'll look at a year of your actual usage and tell you which plan should cost you the least.
Questions homeowners ask
What is ComEd Hourly Pricing?
A ComEd supply plan where your electricity price changes every hour with the wholesale market, instead of staying fixed. ComEd's tariff calls it Rate BESH.
Is ComEd Hourly Pricing worth it?
It can be, if you use a lot of your electricity overnight or have a battery or electric car. ComEd says customers have saved an average of 19% on supply. If you can't shift your usage or don't want spike risk, the fixed rate or Time-of-Day Pricing may suit you better.
When is ComEd's hourly price lowest?
Usually between midnight and 5 am. It's usually highest from about 5 to 8 pm.
Where can I see ComEd's hourly prices right now?
At hourlypricing.comed.com, which shows live prices and the next day's forecast.
What's the difference between ComEd's fixed rate and Hourly Pricing?
On the fixed rate, supply costs the same at every hour. On Hourly Pricing, it follows the market: usually cheaper overnight, sometimes much more expensive in the evening.
What's the difference between Hourly Pricing and Time-of-Day Pricing?
Both reward using electricity at off-peak times. Hourly Pricing follows the market hour by hour and can spike. Time-of-Day Pricing sets prices a year in advance for four periods each day. More about Time-of-Day Pricing →
What is the capacity charge on Hourly Pricing?
A monthly charge based on your usage during the hours of peak demand the previous summer, currently $10.10 per kW per month. ComEd resets it each June.
Can I switch back?
Yes, at any time. You'll have to wait 12 months before you can rejoin Hourly Pricing.
More about ComEd: all our ComEd articles →
Last updated: October 1, 2026
