Chicago Area Electricity Prices Go Negative (Jan 25th, 26th, ComEd)

Not terribly surprising.

The base load is heavily nuclear and doesn’t adjust very quickly; there is a lot of installed wind and solar capacity. The past few days have been bitterly cold but also windy and sunny.

Today the wind was a pretty solid 15-20 mph with gusts into the 30s. The high temperature today was 9F (-12C). With no clouds whatsoever. Solar panels go crazy when it is cold and bright.

First saw the reference to negative -$228 / MWh electricity prices at:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-26/power-lin...

and then checked over at Commonwealth Edison Company for the price trends. Hit -$0.068 / kWh on Jan 25th, and -$0.141 / kWh on Jan 26th, 2026.

Average yearly prices for 2025 hovered around $0.03 to 0.04 / kWh for comparison. Both negative (effectively being paid to use electricity) and wild price swings with the winter storm (also made it up to a high of $0.20 / kWh before collapsing negative).

Batteries should help a lot with this, effectively increasing the capacity of the transmission lines.