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On August 19, 2026 the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) issued an order finding that “the present proceeding be initiated to develop rules on utility data access applicable to the usage data of customers of electric and natural gas utilities, as required by Section 5-15 of the Utility Data Access Act (220 ILCS 33/5-15).  This law governs the provision of usage data to customers and other entities at electric and natural gas utilities with more than 100,000 customers.

Previously on August 10, 2026 a Staff Report was filed outlining the steps that have already been taken in preparation for the required rulemaking. The Staff Report dated August 10, 2026, and the draft rule is made a part of the record of this proceeding.

Among other things the draft rule provides that a utility, “shall honor an account holder’s authorized request to transmit the account holder’s covered usage data held by the utility to any entity designated by the account holder.”

Under the draft, the usage data must be made available online and provided at provided at no cost to the recipient.

Per the draft rule, the usage date must also be provided as aggregated usage data from multiple customer accounts.  No customer specific utility usage information, personally identifiable information, or confidential information would be made available.

The draft rule also proposes that the utilities must develop tools allowing account holders to request building data, or request that the utility transfer their building data to others that account holders designate to receive such information.

As the Staff Report notes, Staff facilitated discussion of the new law with stakeholders during five meetings of the Data Access Working Group from April 2026, after the initial legislation had been signed by the Governor, through July 2026, after it had taken effect. Recordings and other materials related to these efforts can be found on the agency’s website at the following address: https://www.icc.illinois.gov/programs/Data-Access-Working-Group.

As background, Public Act 104-458, which took effect on June 1, 2026, enacted, among many other things, the Utility Data Access Act (220 ILCS 33/) (“the Act”). The Act initially required electric utilities with more than 500,000 customers to provide data on energy usage to eligible recipients of that information. Public Act 104-477, which took effect on June 26, 2026, amended the Act to bring natural gas utilities within its scope and, lowering the threshold for its application, made it applicable to electric and natural gas utilities with more than 100,000 customers. Section 5-15 of the Act requires the Illinois Commerce Commission, “[w]ithin 90 days after the effective date of” the initial legislation, to “open a proceeding to establish by rule, consistent with the requirements of the Illinois Administrative Procedure Act and the requirements of subsection (c), procedures to implement the requirements of” Section 5-15 of the Act.