ComEd Peak Time Savings: A Free Bill Credit for Cutting Load on Hot Days

ComEd Peak Time Savings isn’t a rate — it’s a free bill credit for using less power than usual during a handful of hours on hot summer days. There’s nothing to switch on your supply or delivery charge; you keep whatever rate you’re already on, and Peak Time Savings adds a credit on top of it.

That makes it different from every other program in this series. Hourly Pricing, Time-of-Day Pricing, and Delivery Time-of-Day all change what you pay per kilowatt-hour. Peak Time Savings changes nothing about your price — it pays you back for cutting usage during a small number of called hours each summer.

This guide covers how it works, what it stacks with, and an honest look at how Hungry Machines helps today — including what it doesn’t do yet.

How it works

Peak Time Savings is free to enroll for any ComEd customer with a smart meter. Once enrolled:

• ComEd calls a handful of event hours on hot days between May 1 and October 31 — the specific afternoon and early-evening stretches when demand on the grid is highest.
• During those hours, ComEd compares your actual usage to your recent average usage for that time of day.
• If you come in below your average, you earn a bill credit for the difference.

There’s no penalty for not reducing usage during an event — you simply don’t earn a credit for that event. The program only pays for usage that comes in lower than your own baseline; it doesn’t charge more for usage that doesn’t.

What it stacks with

Peak Time Savings sits on top of your existing supply rate rather than replacing it:

• Stacks with Hourly Pricing and Time-of-Day Pricing. Both are compatible — the credit is calculated independently of whatever your per-kWh price already is.
• Does not stack with AC Cycling. ComEd’s AC Cycling program directly controls your air conditioner during peak events, which would conflict with measuring your own voluntary reduction.
• Does not stack with net metering. Customers with net metering are excluded from Peak Time Savings.

How Hungry Machines helps — honestly

Hungry Machines doesn’t receive ComEd’s Peak Time Savings event alerts today. This isn’t a rate the optimizer prices against; it’s a live signal from ComEd that the platform doesn’t currently ingest, and this guide isn’t going to pretend otherwise.

What does help is the mechanism already built for every other ComEd rate: a nightly schedule, built from the next day’s price curve and your comfort settings, that moves HVAC pre-cooling, EV charging, battery charging, and water heating away from expensive summer afternoons — the same hot-day, high-demand stretches where ComEd tends to call Peak Time Savings events in the first place. A home already running that schedule is often already below its own recent-average baseline by the time an event lands, simply because the load that would have driven usage up in that window has already been shifted out of it on a normal day.

That’s the honest version: Hungry Machines doesn’t watch for the alert and react to it. It optimizes every day against price, and on the specific kind of day Peak Time Savings events happen, that everyday optimization tends to land you in credit-earning territory anyway. If you want to cut further once an alert actually arrives — running the AC a degree or two warmer for an hour, holding off on a load you’d otherwise run — that choice is yours to make in the moment; the platform doesn’t override it either way.

Common questions

Does Peak Time Savings work with Hourly Pricing?

Yes. Peak Time Savings is a bill credit layered on top of your existing supply rate, not a replacement for it — it stacks with Hourly Pricing and with Time-of-Day Pricing. Hourly Pricing (or Time-of-Day) prices your regular usage by time, and Peak Time Savings pays an extra credit specifically for coming in below your recent average during the small number of hours ComEd calls an event.

What disqualifies me from Peak Time Savings?

Two things: enrollment in ComEd’s AC Cycling program, and net metering. Outside of those two, any smart-meter customer can enroll for free, regardless of supply rate.

How do I know when an event is happening?

ComEd notifies enrolled customers directly when it calls an event — that’s separate from anything Hungry Machines does today. Hungry Machines doesn’t receive or act on ComEd’s event alerts; it builds a nightly schedule from tomorrow’s price curve that already avoids the hot summer afternoons where events tend to get called, so an enrolled, automated home is often already running below its baseline when an event lands.

Is this the same as Time-of-Day Pricing?

No — Peak Time Savings is not a rate at all. It doesn’t change what you pay per kWh; it pays a credit for staying below your own recent average during a handful of called event hours. Time-of-Day Pricing and Hourly Pricing are rate structures that change your regular price, and Peak Time Savings can run alongside either one.

Next steps

Peak Time Savings pairs with whichever ComEd rate you’re already on. If you haven’t picked one yet: Hourly Pricing prices every hour at the wholesale rate, Time-of-Day Pricing uses four fixed daily windows, and Delivery Time-of-Day applies that same four-window idea to just the delivery charge, stacking with either.

To let your home react to ComEd’s prices automatically, see how Hungry Machines works and sign up now.