Chicago Powers Itself builds city-owned solar, urban wind, geothermal and microgrids. That means an energy installation at the center of every frunchroom zone (the area around each neighborhood's new public plaza), starting in the neighborhoods that have been most starved of investment; solar on every city roof where it is feasible; and city-owned public chargers for electric vehicles. The result is lower bills and power that stays on when the grid goes down.
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PART OF THE NEW BURNHAM PLAN
CONSTRUCT · SYSTEMS
Chicago Powers Itself
Chicago should have lower power bills, and police and fire stations that stay lit when the grid goes down.
Chicago makes its own power right here, with solar panels on city roofs and a power plant in every new neighborhood plaza, all tied together by a city microgrid that keeps police and fire stations running in a blackout.
Every month Chicago pays a private utility for electricity made somewhere else, over wires Chicago doesn't own. That money leaves the city. Los Angeles, San Antonio, Austin, Jacksonville and Seattle all run their own electric utilities, and Austin Energy sent about $125 million into its city's general fund in fiscal 2025.
We don't need to fight ComEd, the private utility, to start. We build alongside the grid. Each new neighborhood plaza (the frunchroom) gets an energy installation at its center, part public art and part power plant. It comes with a neighborhood microgrid and a geothermal loop that heats and cools the plaza and nearby buildings. Neighboring buildings can get up to $25,000 each to connect to the loop. The first ones go to the South and West Side neighborhoods where utility bills take the biggest share of household income.
Then solar goes on every city roof that can take it, starting with police and fire stations, with small wind units where the roof and the wind allow. Geothermal and solar go into residential blocks as the Chicago Remodel Fund, a voter-approved property tax line, rebuilds them block by block. A city microgrid ties it together, so police and fire stations stay running in a blackout and libraries can open as warming and cooling centers. The city owns its public electric vehicle (EV) chargers too and keeps the profit. The panels and batteries come from manufacturers the city partners with through the Chicago Sovereign Fund, which recruits companies that make what the city buys to build here, with the city taking an ownership stake. A city-affiliated crew trained through the Chicago Trades Pipeline, the plan's program to train Chicagoans with the unions for careers rebuilding the city, installs and maintains them. The crew is paid the Dignity Wage, with a path into the apprenticeship of the IBEW, the electricians' union.
The long-term goal is a city-owned utility like Austin's. That takes a generation, not one term. Chicago is called the Windy City, and it should be making power from its own wind too.
WHAT IT WON'T DO
It doesn't take over ComEd. It builds alongside the existing grid.
It doesn't come with a new tax of its own. The plaza installations are built with the share of River Crossing Fee money that goes to the new neighborhood plazas. Work on residential blocks is paid for with Remodel Fund money. Projects whose energy savings cover their cost can borrow against those savings.
It doesn't depend on Washington. It doesn't count on federal solar and wind tax credits, which Congress cut back in 2025.
It doesn't hand the chargers to a private company. The city owns them and keeps what they earn.
How it connects
Nothing in this plan works alone. These are the questions people ask next, and the policies that answer them.
Where do the first installations go? The first go in the new neighborhood plazas, called frunchrooms, where Complete Neighborhoods puts a public artwork at the center that also makes clean power for the area around it.
Complete Neighborhoods: The Frunchroom →
Who builds and makes the equipment? A crew trained through the Chicago Trades Pipeline installs and maintains the equipment, and the Chicago Sovereign Fund recruits the companies that make the solar panels and batteries to build here, with the city taking an ownership stake.
Chicago Trades Pipeline →
Chicago Sovereign Fund →
What powers charging for small vehicles? The Chicago Mobility Fund turns the city vehicle sticker, priced by weight, into the road maintenance fund, and low-speed vehicles, small electric vehicles for short trips, register free.
Chicago Mobility Fund →
Low-Speed Vehicles →
Where do the chargers go? Paved Paradise rebuilds each street once, from the pipes up, and then keeps it up on a schedule.
Paved Paradise →
FISCAL IMPACT
Investment Cost
RENOVATION STEP
Construct · Systems
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01
Where it ranks
OUR PRIORITIES
#13 of 33
HIGH
56.3 / 100
Daily life
Long-term future
Reach
Unlocks
PROMISING Chicago builds city-owned solar and neighborhood microgrids, starting where power bills are highest. Over time they build toward a city utility that pays Chicago back.
When you'd feel it: Years 3–5.
See all the priorities
How I set them
02
How it works
An energy installation at every frunchroom
Each frunchroom zone (the neighborhood plaza and its corridor) gets a commissioned energy installation at its center: a piece of public art that also makes power, using solar, wind, kinetic or geothermal, with battery storage. Around it goes a geothermal loop that heats and cools the plaza and nearby buildings, and a 2–3 megawatt neighborhood microgrid. Neighboring buildings can get up to $25,000 each to connect to the loop.
Most disinvested first
The installation at the center of each frunchroom zone goes in with the zone, and the most disinvested neighborhoods that qualify get the first zones. For the rest of the rollout, energy burden sets the order: the share of a household's income that goes to utility bills, highest on the South and West Sides.
Every city roof that can take it
Solar goes on every feasible city building, with small wind units where the roof and wind allow. The order is police and fire stations first, then libraries and community centers, then water facilities, then offices.
Urban wind
Bladeless and vertical-axis wind units, which work with the turbulent wind between buildings, go on flat-roofed city buildings, and the plan adds a lakefront wind corridor. Wind keeps generating after sunset, so solar and wind together need less battery storage.
Block by block
As the Remodel Fund, the plan's voter-approved neighborhood fund on the property tax, rebuilds neighborhoods block by block, geothermal wells, solar panels and small wind units go in with the new utility trench.
A city microgrid
A microgrid is a local power system that can disconnect from the main grid and keep running on its own. Chicago's links city buildings and frunchroom installations so police and fire stations stay running in a blackout and libraries can open as warming and cooling centers.
City-owned public EV charging
The Chicago Microgrid entity owns and operates the city's public EV chargers (the curb, the power and the chargers) and keeps the full margin, what's left after costs. Chargers are built with curb power into every street rebuilt under Paved Paradise, the plan to rebuild each street once with all its layers together. Under Illinois law, charging electric vehicles isn't a sale of electricity and doesn't make the operator a public utility. For every asset that earns money, the city compares public ownership with a private operator and chooses whichever earns the city more.
Built and made here
Panels and batteries come from manufacturing partners of the Chicago Sovereign Fund, the city's investment fund that takes ownership stakes in the manufacturers Chicago buys from. A city-affiliated crew (not city employees) installs and maintains the solar panels and chargers. The crew is staffed through a technician track of the Chicago Trades Pipeline, the plan's program for training workers in the trades. It pays the Dignity Wage, the plan's minimum wage for adults, with a path into the IBEW apprenticeship. Every charger installer meets the Illinois Commerce Commission's certification rules.
Working alongside ComEd
The city builds its own generation next to the existing grid. It doesn't try to take over ComEd. The long-term goal is a city-owned utility like Austin's, and that takes a generation, not one term.
03
What it costs
Frunchroom energy installations
River Crossing Fee money (the toll non-residents pay to drive across the Chicago River) for building frunchrooms, with the Remodel Fund covering any gap (counted in each zone's cost)
Block-level geothermal and solar
Remodel Fund renovation money
Public chargers for electric cars and low-speed vehicles
Curb power built into Paved Paradise rebuilds; charging money from the Chicago Mobility Fund, the city's road maintenance fund paid by the vehicle sticker ($15M a year)
Projects whose energy savings cover their cost
Can borrow against their own energy savings
Each site is priced from its own engineering before it's built. We borrow only to build things that last, never to pay bills. The plan doesn't count on federal solar and wind tax credits: under the 2025 federal budget law, solar and wind projects keep the main credits only if construction starts by July 4, 2026, or they're in service by December 31, 2027.
04
What it takes to make it happen
MAYOR
Create a Chicago Energy Independence Office by executive order to run the frunchroom installations, the rooftop program, the microgrid and equipment-maker recruiting. Put the rooftop program out to bid by Month 3.
CITY COUNCIL
Approve the budgets that carry the work and any borrowing against energy savings.
COMED
Approve the connection of each installation that ties into its grid.
ILLINOIS COMMERCE COMMISSION
Certify charger installers. Nothing is needed for solar on city roofs or for city-owned EV charging.
SPRINGFIELD AND VOTERS
Nothing for the first-term work. Selling power to residents over a city microgrid is a later step: state law requires voter approval before a city operates a utility for private consumers (65 ILCS 5/11-117-4), and the city's lawyers have to determine how Chicago's home rule powers apply.
05
Timeline
DAY ONE
An executive order creates the Chicago Energy Independence Office.
MONTH 1
Neighborhoods are ranked by energy burden. The rooftop program starts with police and fire stations.
MONTH 3
Bids go out for solar and wind on city buildings, using panels from Chicago Sovereign Fund partners.
YEAR 2
The rooftop program is generating power across multiple sites.
YEAR 3
The first frunchroom installations come online with the first completed zones.
BY EACH ZONE'S SECOND YEAR OF OPERATION
The target is for the corridor to run on power from its own installation.
LONG TERM
The goal is a city-owned utility, built up over a generation.
06
Where it's worked
Austin
Austin Energy, the city-owned utility, transferred $125 million to Austin's general fund in its fiscal 2025 budget. Its fiscal 2026 proposed budget raises that to $139 million. These are budget figures, not audited results.
SOURCE: AUSTIN ENERGY, FY 2026 PROPOSED BUDGET (JULY 17, 2025) ↗
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Chicago today
Since January 1, 2025, city buildings have run on renewable power through a five-year, $422 million deal with Constellation. About half the output of the Double Black Diamond solar farm downstate covers about 70% of the city's use; renewable energy credits cover the rest. The city doesn't own the farm.
SOURCE: GRIST ↗
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Washington
Under the 2025 federal budget law, solar and wind projects keep the main federal tax credits only if construction starts by July 4, 2026, or they're in service by December 31, 2027. Battery storage is exempt from the in-service deadline.
SOURCE: SOLAR ENERGY INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION ↗
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07
Sources
Austin Energy, FY 2026 Proposed Budget (July 17, 2025)
Grist
Solar Energy Industries Association
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