MidAmerican Billing, Explained
There’s a reason every state employs hundreds of regulatory personnel to assess, verify, and audit utilities. It’s the same reason utilities employ hundreds of people to run billing, review processes, lobby, interpret regulations, automate systems, audit accounts, and collect on bills.
Utility billing is very complicated.
It’s not the fault of the utility or state. It’s the regulatory process that requires review and approval of billing based on rules, not competition.
Realgy, as an energy marketer, has reviewed and modeled utility tariffs and bills for 22 years (creating billing systems that allow for utility billing audits).
MidAmerican is a great example of this complication.
Let’s examine their tax collections.
MidAmerican Energy (MEC) is required to collect Excise Tax and County Tax from its customers. Each of these capitalized terms has a specific regulatory definition that determines the correct tax amount.
Here’s a snippet of a typical MEC bill. This example is for a customer located in Moline, Illinois, who used 2,993 kWh last month.
Here’s how these numbers are calculated:
2,000 x 0.330 = $6.60
993 x 0.319 = $3.17
=$9.77 Excise Tax
2,000 x .6283 = $12.57
993 x .4120 = $4.09
= $16.66 Municipal Tax
This seems straightforward so far. Let’s look at what variables are required for each tax.
The first variable is usage. kWh is required for both taxes.
For Excise Tax, here’s the regulation: You only require kWh, and you can see what rate ($/kWh) applies. As you can see, the more kWh you use, the lower the tax rate applied.
For County Tax, you need to know which county you’re located in and your kWh usage.
Here’s the regulation with Moline highlighted for this example. Like the Excise Tax, each county has a rate based on kWh. The more you use, the lower your effective tax rate.
Next time you look at your utility bill, remember that behind each line item are literally hundreds of people and regulations working to ensure accuracy and compliance.
Realgy Energy Services is a registered Retail Energy Marketer serving commercial customers in the states of Illinois, and Indiana. We offer Service Plans that will provide electric and natural gas at wholesale pricing direct to customers without any utility markup. Our Service Plans work with the local utility to provide seamless service and annual energy savings. Service Plans include Guaranteed SavingsTM, ManagedPriceTM, ManagedGreenTM Index, Fixed and PriceAssuranceTM.
Realgy owns and operates 11 solar plants in Illinois and is looking to invest in additional locations. Now 12 with the inclusion of Highland Park newest recreation center West Ridge Center – New Community Recreation Facility Coming in 2026 | Park District of Highland Park
Illinois Offers Community Solar Option
When the utility, state, regulatory and consumer protection agencies, and environmental groups all agree… well then, you can move forward in a big way.
Like in a 50-megawatt way… enough for about 45,000 homes.
The issue that was preventing the solar system from getting a quick permit was capacity constraints. That is, on the two or three times a year when power demand is very low (no A/C or heat is needed or running), they wanted the ability to curtail (turn off) the solar supply in favor of the must-run nuclear power.
NO PROBLEM was the answer.
With that solution agreed upon, ComEd was able to use technology to solve the complex issue of capacity constraints. Having too much power can be as difficult as having too little!
The community solar system being constructed benefits many people, as they can buy from the community solar system, and ComEd agrees to deliver that energy at the cost you purchase it from the community solar developer.
It can be very similar to the solar PV systems we install. The difference is that Realgy installs them for the use of one larger customer, whereas community solar installs larger PV systems and allows many (think hundreds) to buy some or all of their energy.
Coming to this understanding was not simple or easy. Utilities and solar developers have been at odds for years. State agencies did not always want additional power supplies in their state, and regulatory/consumer protection agencies took a skeptical view of the technology and developers. However, with the demand for power increasing and solar PV now a proven and reliable supply, most of these issues have been overcome.
Realgy Energy Services is a registered Retail Energy Marketer serving commercial customers in the states of Illinois, and Indiana. We offer Service Plans that will provide electric and natural gas at wholesale pricing direct to customers without any utility markup. Our Service Plans work with the local utility to provide seamless service and annual energy savings. Service Plans include Guaranteed SavingsTM, ManagedPriceTM, ManagedGreenTM Index, Fixed and PriceAssuranceTM.
Realgy owns and operates 11 solar plants in Illinois and is looking to invest in additional locations. Now 12 with the inclusion of Highland Park newest recreation center West Ridge Center – New Community Recreation Facility Coming in 2026 | Park District of Highland Park
Additional Information:
How a community solar breakthrough took shape in… | Canary Media
