PECO plans to expand a subsidy program that helps low-income customers pay their electricity bills, adding $2.5 million to the initiative and making more households eligible for assistance.
The Customer Assistance Fund provides one-time grants of $750. Once the expansion goes into effect on March 2, households will be able to apply if they have past due bills and their income is 300% of the federal poverty level or less. This amounts to $96,456 for a family of four.
Under the current rules, the program is circumscribed to households falling between 150% and 300% of the poverty threshold. Customers with incomes in this range can apply now, while customers below this level must wait until March. Information on how to submit applications is available on the website PECO website.
PECO and its parent company Exelon announced the changes as residents throughout the region face higher utility bills due to several factors.
These include the rising costs of modernizing an aging electrical grid, the development of energy-intensive data centers, political battle on how to generate more energy while keeping prices under control, and a frosty front that threatens to dump several inches of snow on the region this weekend.
“The challenges our customers face due to rising energy costs and increased energy consumption due to colder weather continue to pose a problem for people and families across our region,” said PECO President David Vahos. “We are pleased to expand the fund to reach more of our customers who we know are struggling, while working to advocate for long-term solutions to keep energy costs as low as possible.”
Low-income payer advocates welcomed the expanded program, which is a voluntary initiative by Exelon. But they said cash-strapped customers in Philadelphia and other areas covered by PECO could exploit much more facilitate to avoid power outages and arduous decisions about whether to pay rent, utility bills or groceries.
“PECO rates have increased dramatically year over year, and this additional source of relief will be critical to help address the growing energy affordability crisis in the short term,” said Elizabeth Marx, executive director of the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project. “That said, rising energy costs are unlikely to improve any time soon, so long-term solutions should be sought in conjunction with this short-term additional relief.”
Energy demand exceeds supply
Last summer, Exelon launched its Customer Relief Fund, giving $50 million to charities to facilitate administer the relief.
It split those dollars among the six utilities it serves – Atlantic City Electric, BGE, ComEd, Delmarva Power, PECO and Pepco – and $10 million went to United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey to facilitate PECO customers.
The program is designed to “help manage the impact of rising energy supply costs as demand increases and supply is unable to meet it,” the company said. Exelon distributes energy but doesn’t produce it itself and doesn’t control generation costs, which make up a enormous portion of residential bills.
The first round of grants is currently available to PECO residential electricity and natural gas customers located in 150% to 300% of the FPL range. They must have an outstanding balance of up to $2,500 or a balance that they can reduce to $2,500 if they make a “co-payment” under program guidelines. They must also not have had any charges for theft of services in the last 12 months.
Last week, Exelon announced it would commit an additional $10 million to the program, including $2.5 million for PECO customers. This means PECO’s allocation to date is $12.5 million.
In addition to expanding eligibility to households with incomes from 0 to 150% FPL, Exelon is relaxing the eligibility requirement that customers must be able to pay off their outstanding bill, said Joline Price, an attorney in the energy department at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia.
Going forward, subsidy recipients will need to be able to pay enough of their bill to avoid service termination, she added. In some situations, this may be less than the total arrears.
One of several aid programs
There is a Customer Assistance Fund one of several programs available to assist qualifying PECO customers. Others include the Customer Assistance Program (CAP), the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), the Energy Matching Assistance Fund (MEAF), and the Public Utilities Grant Program.
CAP is a PECO program available to households below 150% FPL that allows them to pay low, fixed utility rates based on their income. Price said low-income households should apply online or visit one of the city’s 16 locations Community Energy Centers for facilitate in submitting the application.
LIHEAP is a federal government program that provides eligible households with one-time grants ranging from $200 to $1,000 from December to April to facilitate reduce heating bills. It does not require the Customer to have an outstanding account. LIHEAP also has a separate crisis program for emergencies such as outages and broken equipment.
“If people are applying for the Customer Relief Fund and are eligible for the Customer Assistance Program or LIHEAP, they should also apply for that,” Price said. “CAP enrollment rates are not where they should be in terms of the proportion of low-income households benefiting from the program.”
MEAF is PECO’s program that provides emergency facilitate for households experiencing fleeting difficulties. They must be 200% FPL or less and you must exploit these funds as part of a payment that cancels a pending shutdown or restoration of service.
The Utility Grant program is operated by UESF, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization. To be eligible, a household must have received notice of termination from PECO or the Philadelphia Water Department or already have services turned off; be at or below 200% FPL; must exploit the grant to pay off the outstanding bill in full; AND meet other requirements.
Price said more facilitate is needed to stem the rising number of terminations due to non-payment. She said PECO disconnected power to 87,000 households in 2023, and that number increased to 126,000 last year.
“In 2023, approximately 18% of terminated households were confirmed to be low-income. There are many more likely low-income households that PECO has no information about,” she said. “And it’s just households that have actually been cut off. Many, many, many more are receiving notifications, which can cause all sorts of stress and impact on the household as well.”
State and federal calls for lower rates
The augment in assistance follows a series of rate increases that PECO customers have adopted over the past year.
After receiving approval from the state Public Utility Commission in January 2025, PECO increased its bills by 10%, primarily to cover infrastructure investments. This represented an augment of $13.58 to $149.43 per month for a typical residential customer who uses 700 kilowatt hours per month.
In June, the utility began a gradual 10% augment due to rising electricity generation costs. This happened after a controversial “capacity auction” conducted by PJM, the organization that oversees the regional power grid.
This month, PECO implemented the second of its PUC-approved increases, a 2.8% augment that raised the typical bill from $156.01 in December to $160.37 today.
Gov. Josh Shapiro has tried to blunt the trend of rising costs by putting pressure on PJM to limit the amount of high power generation costs that could rise as a result of capacity auctions. In these auctions, utilities bid to guarantee they will be able to produce electricity during periods of high demand, such as the hottest summer days and coldest winter nights. The fees they charge are then passed on to consumers in the form of monthly bills.
Last week, Shapiro and other governors signed an agreement with the Trump administration which, if implemented, will maintain price ceilings and encourage the construction of fresh power plants. It would speed up PJM’s process of connecting power plants to the grid, create incentives to build the plants, and make it so that data centers, rather than households and diminutive businesses, pay for those incentives.
Meanwhile, Democrats in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives have proposed legislation to protect payers from having to foot the bill for data centers, and some advocates are calling on the Legislature to create a fresh tax on shopping centers to facilitate reduce consumers’ energy bills.
