Energy Solutions remains committed to providing frequent updates and details on application processing progress for Illinois Shines. Project application review volumes for the week again exceeded our forecasted processing volume, continuing progress toward the Program Administrator’s forecast to bring application processing to within two months of submission by mid-May, as shared in the April 4, 2023, announcement. Since Energy Solutions became Program Administrator July 1, 2022 and through May 21, 2023, the program has reviewed over 10,700 Part I project applications and 4,850 Part II applications.
The Program Administrator continues to strategically allocate staff across review areas to meet and exceed forecasted processing targets, and to implement process improvements toward achieving a two-week review turnaround by the end of Summer 2023.
This announcement provides the following application processing updates:
- Updated application processing tables through the week starting May 15, 2023, and forecast aligning with a two-month turnaround this week.
- Updates on staffing, training, resourcing, process improvement, and automation to accelerate application reviews
Application Processing Updates
The Program Administrator continues to forecast achieving review turnaround times of two weeks by Summer 2023. Updated application processing data is published on the Program website on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This weekly announcement reflects projected and actual application submission and processing throughput, including a running “turnaround time” of submission date to application review by project type/category, and updates on our Need Info efforts.
The week of May 15, 2023, the Program received fewer new project applications than projected, however the Program Administrator remains prepared to address higher volumes which are expected in the coming month as the current program year ends and the new capacity is opened June 1st.
Applications are reviewed in order of submission date by Part I/Part II groups, regardless of project category reflected in forecasted review dates. For example, older Part I Small DG applications are processed before more recently submitted Part I Large DG applications.
*End of Week Queue column includes the total number of applications batched and paid which have not been reviewed. Due to project cancellations, the current queue may not exactly equal the previous week’s queue plus submitted less reviewed application volumes.
Staffing and Training Enhancements
- Staffing – The Program Administrator’s applications team is more than 50 full-time equivalent employees and has prepared to “ramp up” for the start of June anticipating high application submission volumes.
- Productivity and Quality Gains – Increases in staff experience, the continued success of training cohorts, and increasing highly productive bulk review teams.
Need Info Updates
Resolving the high Need Info volume and resulting delays in application approvals is a high priority. The Need Info working group, created to address this volume of applications continued to resolve currently flagged applications and prevent erroneous patterns. The Program Administrator continues to identify the most common causes of Need Info requests resulting from AV submissions on project applications. These include:
- Part I Applications
- Inconsistency or errors in Financing/Ownership structure: For example, project will be listed as “Customer-Owned”, but owner listed on DF and/or Application is conflicting.
- Documents uploaded for wrong property address
- Part II Applications
- Meter photos which do not show cumulative lifetime meter reading as required
- The number of modules in the application do not match the number of modules shown in the array photos as required.
- Demographic and zip code information missing or incomplete. Reminder, this requirement comes from the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act.
- The inverter information in the application does not match the inverter photos.
The Program Administrator thanks stakeholders for their continued patience and feedback. We are working hard to aggressively meet application review and approval targets and bring application processing into expected timeframes for the benefit of all stakeholders. Stakeholders are invited to contact the Program Administrator at any time regarding specific applications or overall application processing, by contacting: [email protected] or (877) 783-1820.
