On October 16, 2025, the Illinois Commerce Commission (“ICC”) issued an Order approving the Administrative Law Judge’s Proposed Order, with modifications, on the re-opening of the 2024 Long-Term Plan. The Order is available in Docket 23-0714. The Agency will publish an updated 2024 Long-Term Plan that conforms with the Order, no later than 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
To expand the capacity of the 2025-26 Program Year, the Program will pause 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. During the Program pause:
- All Disclosure Form functionality, including the ability to create and submit Disclosure Forms and obtain signatures, will be available.
- Access to project applications and batches will be unavailable in the Illinois Shines Portal.
- The ability for Approved Vendors to create, revise, submit, and batch project applications will be paused within the Portal.
- Project data may be exported from the Application Dashboard prior to the pause. To export data, navigate to Menu: Project Applications -> View. Then apply your preferred Search Filters in the column headings. When you’re ready to export, select the “Export Project Data” button at the top of the page.
Developer caps currently in effect will continue to apply after capacity is added. All Program requirements remain in place as set forth in the 2024 Long-Term Plan, with the following considerations:
- Traditional Community Solar – After capacity allocation to waitlisted projects, if remaining capacity is available, the day after the Program pause, October 31, 2025, will be treated as the “first day” of the Program Year as set out in Section 7.4.3 of the 2024 Long-Term Plan.
- Community-Driven Community Solar – Projects submitted during the 90-day CDCS application window for the 2025-26 Program Year are still in the scoring process period. After the scoring process and project selection, if remaining capacity is available, the Program plans to open a second 45-day application window for CDCS project submission on January 16, 2026.
Prior to the interim reallocation on April 1, 2026, the Program will pause for two business days to determine the amount of unused capacity and to redistribute it in accordance with the prioritization for year-end reallocation set out in Section 7.3.4 of the 2024 Long-Term Plan, with the exception of the 25% rollover of unallocated Public Schools capacity.
Thank you!
Illinois Shines Program
[email protected]