Commonwealth Edison announced a voluntary pilot program thatwill automatically pay its customers if it fails to live up to itscommitment to reduce electric service interruptions, provide fasterservice restoration when outages do occur and deliver bettercommunication with customers and governmental bodies aboutservice-related issues. Developed in partnership with theMetropolitan Mayors Caucus and the City of Chicago, ComEd said itpledges to automatically pay business and residential customerswhose service has been interrupted as a result ofutility-controlled circumstances. Under the plan, qualifyingresidential and business customers will receive about the averageof one month’s electric service for each outage that exceeds eighthours or if they experience three or more outages, each of four ormore hours in length, during a two-month period. Business customerswould receive $100 credit on their account balance, whileresidential customers would receive a check for $60 for eachqualified outage. In addition, customers whose service isinterrupted for 12 hours or longer will automatically receive fullcredit of their monthly customer charge. Subsequent 12-hour outageswill result in an additional monthly credit for every outageincident. Payments will automatically be disbursed within 30 days,and do not require an additional call from the customer.

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