Lawmakers, advocates discuss battery storage, consumer costs in energy
bill
[October 15, 2025]
By Jim Talamonti | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – An Illinois state lawmaker is pushing battery
storage legislation, but not all of her Democratic colleagues are on
board.
State Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, said the Clean and Reliable Grid
Affordability Act (CRGA) builds upon the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act
(CEJA), which Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law in 2021, but Williams
said the landscape has changed dramatically.
“Data centers, advanced manufacturing practices and, of course, the
efforts we’ve all made toward electrification are generating a lot of
demand,” Williams said during a press conference Tuesday at the Illinois
Capitol.
Williams was joined by members of the solar industry and clean energy
advocates and said she hoped to get the bill passed during fall veto
session this month.
“Storage is where it’s at,” Williams asserted.
State Sen. Willie Preston, D-Chicago, expressed concerns about the cost
of battery storage.
“I know that any other line item put on a utility bill, a light bill,
could just crush working-class people in these high inflationary times,”
Preston told The Center Square last Friday.
Preston said he’s a “hard no” on an energy omnibus.
Energy industry leaders are similarly divided when it comes to CRGA’s
price tag.
Barry Matchett of Clearway Energy Group, a national renewable and
battery storage developer, said CRGA would save ratepayers $34 billion
over the next 20 years.
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“A big part of it is the storage section for utility-scale storage,”
Matchett said at Tuesday’s press conference in Springfield.
Jim Watson, executive director of the American Petroleum Institute
in Illinois, said CRGA would provide about $14 billion through 2035
for six gigawatts of battery storage, or about four hours of energy
storage per day. Watson said transmission losses and the
intermittent nature of wind and solar would reduce the capacity to
about two hours per day.
“It’s going to be a hit to consumers. It’s going to be a hit to
large industrial users,” Watson told The Center Square.
Watson said the measure’s projected cost savings by advocates
include indirect benefits that are not guaranteed. He noted it is
unusual that the legislation does not include price caps to protect
consumers.
“I think what you’re going to find is, you know, the solar people
don’t want that. They want to be able to get the maximum return,”
Watson explained.
Watson said battery storage will not solve Illinois’ capacity
issues.
“The one thing that we’re going to have nationwide is capacity
issues, energy capacity. The only way to get there is through
natural gas, or nuclear, but nuclear’s going to take a long time to
build,” Watson told The Center Square.
Watson said he hopes Gov. J.B. Pritzker relaxes decarbonization
mandates to meet the energy demands of data centers and artificial
intelligence.
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