UPDATE: Moving forward with updating DG Disclosure Forms to reflect change in net metering and new fields for batteries; New fields in Portal will launch in mid-October
The Agency appreciates the stakeholder feedback submitted on the Disclosure Form update proposals. The Agency has reviewed all feedback and will be moving forward with the general approach outlined in the proposals. The Agency does wish to provide an update on a few specific items and respond to a few questions:
- The fact that the Disclosure Forms include an estimate of the value of electricity generated by the solar project does not preclude Approved Vendors and Designees from providing their own estimates of the financial value of a solar project to prospective customers, as long as the estimates are reasonable, not misleading, and supportable.
- New Disclosure Forms will be used in place of the current Disclosure Forms starting January 1, 2025. For Illinois Shines API users, the Program Administrator will provide documentation and a test environment in advance of January 1, 2025. Additional information on timing is provided below.
In addition, the Program Administrator provides the following update:
- Several new fields in the DG Disclosure Forms will appear in the Illinois Shines Portal interface when generating Disclosure Forms starting in mid-October of this year. The new fields will be required fields; however, the information entered will not be used by, or show up in, the actual Disclosure Form PDF that is generated or sent to the customer until after January 1, 2025. Please do ensure that you enter correct information into these fields; do not use “dummy” data. If a Disclosure Form is started before January 1, 2025 but not actually completed until after January 1, or if a Disclosure Form needs to be regenerated after January 1, the Portal will use the information from these fields in the actual PDF sent to the customer.
- The new fields that will launch in mid-October in the Portal for DG Disclosure Forms will be:
- whether there is a battery
- (if there is a battery) battery size
- (if there is a battery) whether the project will take the utility battery rebate
- (if the project will take a utility rebate) whether the customer will receive the utility rebate at the rate of $250/kW or kWh or $300/kW or kWh (additional guidance will be provided on how to determine which rate is applicable)
- (if the project will take the utility battery rebate) who will keep the utility battery rebate
- customer’s expected annual electricity usage (in kWh)
- An additional field will be developed specifically for customers in the service territory of rural electric co-operatives, municipal utilities, and Mount Carmel. For these customers, the Value of Electricity and Savings Estimate section will toggle off, and instead the user will provide information on how the utility will credit the customer for electricity that is sent back to the grid. (This will replace the current Unavailability of Net Metering Customer Acknowledgement form.) This field will become available in the Portal later this Fall.
- This approach of launching the new Portal fields as soon as they are developed will help simplify the development process for the new Disclosure Forms.
- The launching of the new fields in the Portal interface will not impact how current API users and CSV users generate Disclosure Forms between now and January 1, 2025.
- For API users, documentation and test environments will be provided in multiple stages as the new elements are developed:
- First, the new Disclosure Form fields will be made available in the test environment and documentation will be provided to users. At this point, the test environment will NO LONGER be available for use for testing the current (pre-2025) Disclosure Forms.
- Second, documentation will be provided for the PDFs for DG Disclosure Forms in English, and the test environment will be updated. The first and second stages should be available by the end of November 2024.
- Third, documentation will be provided for the PDFs for DG Disclosure Forms in Spanish, and the test environment will be updated.
Please see this instructional handout for more information on creating Disclosure Forms in the Portal between October 15, 2024 and December 31, 2024.
Thank you!
Illinois Shines Program
[email protected]