2024 Long-Term Plan Re-Opening
On October 16, 2025, the Illinois Commerce Commission (“ICC”) issued an Order approving the Administrative Law Judge’s Proposed Order, with modifications, on the reopening of the 2024 Long-Term Plan. The Order is available in Docket 23-0714. The Agency will file a modified 2024 Long-Term Plan that conforms with the Order, no later than today, October 31, 2025.
Changes from the 2024 Long-Term Plan Re-Opening impacting the Illinois Shines program include:
- Expanding the 2025-26 Program Year capacity by 100% except for the EEC Category, which will be expanded by 64 MW for Group A and 169 MW for Group B
- Imposing an interim reallocation of 50% of remaining unused capacity on April 1, 2026, to distribute among waitlisted projects as the waitlist exists on April 1, 2026
Program Year 2025-26 Program Guidebook Addendum
The Program published a Program Guidebook Addendum to detail changes resulting from the 2024 Long-Term Plan Re-Opening. All Program requirements set forth in the 2025-26 Program Guidebook will continue, with considerations described in the Program Guidebook Addendum, including temporary Program Portal closures, block structure updates, developer cap notes, and processes relating to Traditional Community Solar (“TCS”), Community-Driven Community Solar (“CDCS”), Public Schools, and Equity Eligible Contractor (“EEC”) categories and capacity.
Process and Details of Capacity Expansion for the 2025-26 Program Year Resulting From 2024 Long-Term Plan Re-Opening
To expand the capacity of the 2025-26 Program Year by 100%, except for the EEC Category, which was expanded by 64 MW for Group A and 169 MW for Group B, the Program paused for one business day, from October 30, 2025, at 8:00 a.m. CPT through October 31, 2025, at 8:00 a.m. CPT, to undertake data and reporting updates to expand program capacity, including updates to the Program website and the Program Portal, and allocation of capacity to waitlisted applications. Please see this announcement for details of the 2024 Long-Term Plan Re-Opening and Program Pause for New Capacity.
This memo details the steps the Program has taken to conform to the ICC’s Order and allocate capacity to eligible waitlisted applications. The table that follows summarizes the results of the allocations and the amount of capacity that was available at Program Re-Opening on October 31, 2025.
- Capacity was allocated to all eligible, waitlisted TCS Group B projects. The expanded 20% developer cap (59.60 MW) was applied during this time. After the waitlist allocations, no projects remained on the waitlist, and 28.45 MW of capacity are still unallocated. If this available capacity is exhausted on October 31, the first day of program reopening, then the ‘first day’ scoring mechanism will be triggered. Additional details about this scoring mechanism can be found in Appendix E of the Program Guidebook. Please note that there are projects totaling 16.99 MW that were submitted prior to the re-opening and are still currently in the scoring process.
- Capacity totaling 68.88 MW was allocated to projects from the TCS Group A waitlist. The expanded 20% developer cap (25.60 MW) was applied during this time. After the expanded capacity was allocated, there were still projects remaining on the TCS Group A waitlist.
- Projects totaling 46.022 MW were selected off the EEC Group A waitlist. The expanded 20% developer cap (24.54 MW) was applied during this time. After waitlist allocations, there were still projects remaining on the EEC Group A waitlist.
- No projects were selected from the CDCS waitlists prior to program reopening. CDCS project selection for the 2025-26 Program Year will take place in early December.
Waitlist Selection Procedures
Projects selected from each category’s applicable waitlist will receive the REC pricing associated with the block of capacity for the Group/category combination it will utilize, and the Approved Vendor (“AV”) will be given 10 business days from selection notification to accept or decline the selection. If the AV declines, the next project(s) on the waitlist (subject to available capacity) would be selected along the same terms (10 business days to accept or decline) with this process repeated as necessary until the available capacity is exhausted.
Next Steps
Projects selected from the waitlists will be submitted to the next eligible ICC meeting for approval for REC contracts. The first eligible ICC meeting for this project selection is December 4, 2025.
Please note: The Agency has temporarily paused the enforcement of the two withhold limit from ICC meetings. This pause will be in effect until the Agency determines this pause is no longer necessary. AVs that do not wish to take advantage of these additional withholdings may send projects to the ICC during the re-batching window.
The following table summarizes the results of the aforementioned capacity expansion, the capacity allocation to existing waitlists, and the amount of capacity that was available at Program reopening on October 31, 2025.
| Block | Group | Category | Tier (Public Schools only) | Size kW (Public Schools only) | 2025-26 Program Year uncontracted capacity prior to program pause (MW) | Capacity added due to expansion | Allocations made to existing waitlists (MW) | Program reopening unallocated capacity after waitlist allocation (MW) |
| CEJACategory | Group | Tier | Uncontracted capacity + expansion capacity – waitlist | |||||
| Small DG | N/A | DG | 74.73 | 142.00 | 0.00 | 216.73 | ||
| Large DG | N/A | DG | 109.04 | 142.00 | 0.00 | 251.04 | ||
| TCS | A (30%) | CS | 0.00 | 64.00 | 68.88 | 0.00 | ||
| TCS | B (70%) | CS | 0.00 | 149.00 | 117.52 | 28.45 | ||
| CDCS | A (30%) | CS | 11.00 | 11.00 | 0.00 | 22.00 | ||
| CDCS | B (70%) | CS | 25.00 | 25.00 | 0.00 | 50.00 | ||
| EEC | A (30%) | CS (75%) | 0.00 | 48.00 | 46.02 | 1.98 | ||
| DG (25%) | 11.16 | 16.00 | 0.00 | 27.16 | ||||
| B (70%) | CS (75%) | 41.42 | 126.75 | 0.00 | 168.17 | |||
| DG (25%) | 27.98 | 42.25 | 0.00 | 70.23 | ||||
| Public Schools | N/A | CS (25%) | Tier 1, 2, and EJC (70%) | <250 kW(25%) | 6.19 | 4.68 | 0 | 10.87 |
| 250 – 1000(50%) | 12.38 | 9.36 | 21.74 | |||||
| 1000-5000(25%) | 2.89 | 4.68 | 7.57 | |||||
| Tier 3, 4(30%) | <250 kW(25%) | 2.65 | 2.01 | 4.66 | ||||
| 250 – 1000(50%) | 5.31 | 4.01 | 9.32 | |||||
| 1000-5000(25%) | 2.65 | 2.01 | 4.66 | |||||
| DG (75%) | Tier 1, 2, and EJC (70%) | <250 kW(25%) | 18.57 | 14.04 | 0 | 32.61 | ||
| 250 – 100050%) | 36.19 | 28.09 | 64.28 | |||||
| 1000-5000(25%) | 18.57 | 14.04 | 32.61 | |||||
| Tier 3, 4(30%) | <250 kW(25%) | 7.96 | 6.02 | 13.98 | ||||
| 250 – 1000(50%) | 15.31 | 12.04 | 27.35 | |||||
| 1000-5000(25%) | 7.96 | 6.02 | 13.98 |
The following table details the 20% developer cap for TCS and EEC categories updated upon Program reopening on October 31, 2025.
| TCS Group A new developer cap (MW) | TCS Group B new developer cap (MW) | EEC Group A new developer cap (MW) | EEC Group B new developer cap (MW) |
| 25.60 | 59.60 | 24.54 | 61.11 |
For available Office Hours support, please see the most recent Program announcements. For assistance at any time, please contact the Program Administrator at [email protected] or (877) 783-1820.
Thank you!
Illinois Shines Program
[email protected]