Following the Program Re-Opening, on October 31, 2025, capacity for the 2025-26 Program Year was expanded and allocated. The expanded capacity was initially allocated to projects on the 2025-26 Program Year waitlists, leaving 0 MW of capacity available for Group A and 6.17 MW available for Group B for newly submitted applications. The expanded 20% developer cap was applied during this time. Projects selected from the waitlists were submitted to the next eligible ICC meeting for approval for REC contracts.
At 11:59 p.m. CPT on October 31, 2025, the first day of application submissions for Program Year 2025-26 re-opening ended and a total of 35.02 MW of capacity was submitted: 5.00 MW submitted to Group A and 30.02 MW submitted to Group B.
As detailed above, the block capacity allocation has been exceeded for both Traditional Community Solar (“TCS”) Groups A and B. As a result, per Section 1.E. of the Program Guidebook, a “First Day” Scoring process was triggered, as specified in the current Program Guidebook (published June 3, 2025). In accordance with the TCS scoring guidelines previously published in both the 2024 Long-Term Renewable Resources Procurement Plan (Section 7.4.3.1.) and the 2025-26 Program Guidebook (Appendix E), the Program Administrator has scored all TCS projects submitted on October 31, 2025, that completed Part I application processing.
The scores have been posted on the Program website on the Traditional Community Solar page of the Project Category Hub.
The following table summarizes the results of the capacity expansion, the capacity allocation to existing waitlists, and the amount of capacity that is available to TCS projects submitted on October 31, 2025. Following October 31, 2025, several applications that were allocated capacity were withdrawn or removed from a contract making 19.615 MW of capacity available to Group B projects submitted October 31.
| Group | Final Block Size after capacity expansion (MW) | Available capacity after allocations to existing waitlists (MW) |
| A | 128 | 0 |
| B | 298 | 25.404 |
Next Steps
While the Program Administrator has carefully reviewed project applications to determine scores and applied scoring criteria consistently across all project applications, an Approved Vendor (“AV”) may appeal decisions made by the Program Administrator on the scoring of their projects. Any appeal of TCS scores will need to be submitted in accordance with the appeal process outlined in the 2025-26 Program Guidebook (pg. 28). An AV has two weeks from January 27, 2026, to file an appeal.
Submitted appeals must be received by the Program Administrator at [email protected], by 11:59 p.m. CPT on February 10, 2026. As the determination of appeals may influence a project’s final score, and thus possibly the final selection of all TCS projects, all appeals must be reviewed by the Agency within a distinct timeframe. The Agency intends to have all submitted appeals determined by February 24, 2026, subject to the quantity and substance of appeals submitted.
Following the resolution of scoring appeals, if any, all scores will be posted. The Agency does not expect that random selection of projects within tied score brackets will be necessary, based on the current scoring.
Projects that are placed on the TCS 2025-26 waitlist will remain waitlisted until capacity in the respective Group becomes available. Waitlisted projects will be eligible for new capacity with the 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.
Projects that received a score less than the required five point minimum to be placed on the waitlist may be resubmitted to the Program at any time. The AV will need to submit a new application; thus, a new application fee will be required.
Anticipated Schedule of Next Steps
- February 10, 2026, 11:59 p.m. CPT – Deadline for AVs to submit appeals to Program Administrator.
- February 24, 2026 – Appeal determinations released to AVs and any changes to scores will be published to the Program website.
- February 27, 2026 – Final scores and project selection published.
Thank you!
Illinois Shines Program
[email protected]