This story was originally published by Canary Media. It has been edited to conform with Corporate Knights style.

Jean Gay-Robinson says she ​“cried tears of joy” when utility ComEd switched all the polluting gas-fired equipment in her Chicago home to modern electric versions, at no cost to her. As a retiree on a fixed income, she is relieved that she’ll likely never have to buy another appliance, her energy bills are lower, and her home feels safer. ​“I don’t have to worry about gas blowing up or carbon monoxide, that kind of nonsense,” she says.

Gay-Robinson is among the hundreds of people who have benefited from a provision of Illinois’s 2021 clean-energy law that allows electric utilities to meet energy-conservation mandates in part by outfitting low-income households with electric appliances that reduce their bills – even though such overhauls actually increase, rather than decrease, electricity use.

Such policies are rare nationwide, but the approach could be a tool to keep building decarbonization rolling as the Trump administration kills federal incentives for home electrification.

Modern electrical appliances – like induction stoves, electric dryers and heat pumps that warm and cool spaces – are generally much more energy-efficient than their fossil-fuelled counterparts. That means that electrifying appliances cuts the amount of fossil fuels burned, even in places where gas and coal plants feed the power grid, says Nick Montoni, senior program director of policy and markets at the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center at North Carolina State University. As more renewable energy comes online, the emissions linked to electrical appliances decrease even further.

Plus, families breathe significantly cleaner indoor air when they change to an electric cooktop, because of the slew of health-harming pollutants emitted by gas stoves.

But replacing appliances is not cheap, and under the Trump administration’s budget law, federal tax credits to help households afford electric heat pumps and water heaters expire in December – seven years earlier than they were previously supposed to. Meanwhile, the future is uncertain for the federally funded Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates (HEAR) program, an Inflation Reduction Act initiative that is administered by states and provides incentives for electric appliances. While some states have already launched their HEAR programs, the Trump administration put the remaining funds on ice earlier this year, and Illinois has not yet received its allotment.

Amid this federal upheaval, state policies that incentivize utilities to pick up the tab for electrification can be especially impactful. “It’s expensive to electrify because it requires up-front cost,” says Montoni, who formerly served as deputy chief of staff at the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. ​“You have to be able to afford a heat pump, an induction stove, an electric water heater – those aren’t inexpensive. That’s why there are rebates and incentives.”

Illinois utilities commit to electrification

Illinois law requires ComEd to cut electricity consumption each year by an amount equivalent to 2% of the utility’s annual sales in the early 2020s. The state’s other big electric utility, Ameren, faces similar rules in 2029 under a law passed this fall, though in the past it had lower savings mandates.

The 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act specifies that a portion of mandated energy savings – 5% since 2022, 10% starting next year and 15% after 2029 – can come from electrification. The law also created a formula to convert the amount of energy used by a gas-powered appliance to electricity in kilowatt-hours, allowing an estimate of how much energy is saved by switching from gas to electric. “So if a home gets partially or fully electrified through an electric energy-efficiency program, the utility claims the savings by calculating the difference between the gas therms in kilowatt-hour equivalents and the kilowatt[-hours] added via the electric measures,” explains Kari Ross, Midwest energy affordability advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Montoni calls the policy ​“a pretty interesting mechanism – not unique, but very rare, from what I’ve seen.”

Michigan does have a similar policy, since a 2023 law allows electric and gas utilities to claim electrification as part of their mandatory energy-waste reduction. That legislation also includes a formula for determining the energy-efficiency gains from going electric.

Montoni says that allowing electric utilities to count electrification toward their efficiency mandates is an important way to incentivize the shift off fossil fuels, especially in the more than a dozen states where different utilities provide electric and gas service.

When a utility provides both gas and electricity, electrification will typically show overall energy savings, Montoni explains. But when a utility provides only electricity, a formula similar to Illinois’s is needed for the utility to show that it is saving energy, even though a given customer’s electricity use actually increases after electrification.

In northern Illinois, ComEd is the primary electric utility, operating alongside two major gas utilities. Through its whole-home energy-efficient electrification program, ComEd pays all up-front costs for electric appliances and heat pumps for households earning at or below 80% of the area median income. That initiative has electrified more than 700 low-income households since it launched in 2022. The utility also offers rebates for customers of any income for purchasing electric appliances, including geothermal heat pumps.