Illinois lawmakers are in final discussions over several progressive initiatives in the omnibus Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act.
Environmental advocates worry Illinois may delay the retirement of coal plants to help meet its rising electricity demand, largely caused by new data centers and AI. Meanwhile, renewable energy projects in Illinois are in limbo as they wait to get permission from the state’s grid operators PJM and MISO. The act hopes to address these issues, while helping the state meet its renewable energy targets.
The Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act is the successor to the 2021 Clean and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), which expanded the Illinois Solar for All program from $30 million to $70 million per year, unlocking the benefits of affordable renewable energy for families across the state. CEJA also set a target to get Illinois to 40% renewable energy by 2030 and 50% renewable energy by 2040.
Solar Bill of Rights
The bill creates a Solar Bill of Rights, which aims to establish fair, transparent rules for solar energy across all utility territories within Illinois.
The Solar Bill of Rights requires incentives to be offered to low-income customers, non-profits and public facilities, either directly or through developers, to increase these groups’ participation in community solar.
The bill says the program’s goal is to allocate a minimum of 25% of the program’s incentives to community solar projects in environmental justice communities. It directs the agency to reserve a portion of the program for projects that promote “energy sovereignty” through ownership of projects by low-income households, not-for-profit organizations providing services to low-income households, affordable housing owners, or community-based limited liability companies providing services to low-income households.
The bill also requires the Illinois Power Agency to direct up to 5% of the funds available under the Illinois Solar for All program to community-based groups and other qualifying organizations to assist in community-driven education efforts, such as general energy education and job training program outreach efforts. The Solar Bill of Rights also puts a cap on high insurance requirements for installing rooftop solar.
In Illinois, community solar projects are compensated at the same price that utilities pay to procure and deliver power to their end-use customers. By allowing distributed solar and storage to participate in existing wholesale markets, Illinois’ community solar program lowers costs for ratepayers by adding more options to an already competitive energy supply marketplace. This also enables a more efficient use of ratepayer funds to supplement distributed generation project revenues via capacity-based and renewable energy credit incentives.
(Read: Scaling distributed generation starts with smarter state policy)
Illinois introduced a community solar offering under the Illinois Shines program in 2019. In 2023, ComEd opened enrollment to its first community solar project. As of Q4 2024, Illinois was ranked fourth for its community solar operating capacity and fifth per capita, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Nineteen states and D.C. allow community solar, although legislation is underway in some states that, if successful, would increase that number.
(See also: From flipping burgers to flipping the switch on community solar & Five years of Illinois Solar for All)
More information about Illinois Bill of Rights can be found in the bill beginning on page 293.
Illinois Storage for All
The act creates the Illinois Storage for All program, which requires the agency to direct up to 25% of the funds toward grants, rebates or incentives designed to encourage renewable energy storage paired with solar distributed renewable energy generation. Illinois Storage for All would be available to current and future participants of low-income customers, nonprofits and public facilities.
Illinois Storage for All would be designed to support community energy resilience, disaster preparedness and energy bill reductions, particularly for low-income and environmental justice communities.
More information about Illinois Storage for All can be found in the bill beginning on page 87.
(Read: Illinois lawmakers propose 15 GW energy storage target by 2035)
Virtual power plant (VPP) program
According to Department of Energy estimates noted in the legislation, the United States could deploy 80 GW to 150 GW of VPPs by 2030 (a tripling of current levels) to support the rapid electrification of homes and vehicles, saving ratepayers $10 billion per year.
The legislation requires utilities with more than 300,000 customers to develop VPP programs through a standard offer, open-access tariff for distributed energy resources to provide system peak load reduction and other grid services.
More information about the VPP program’s provisions can be found in the bill beginning on page 505.
Time-of-use pricing
The bill establishes opt-in time-of-use rates to “reduce the need for ramping resources and increase the grid’s ability to cost-effectively integrate greater quantities of variable renewable energy and distributed energy resources.”
ComEd currently offers two time-of-use rate programs: Hourly Pricing, which fluctuates based on the actual market rate of electricity at any given hour, and Time-of-Day, which lets customers know a day in advance how much electricity will be during three different periods: off-peak, peak and super peak. For those that don’t require a lot of electricity consumption during peak demand periods, these programs can provide significant savings for participants, along with relief to the grid. For example, as a ComEd customer enrolled in its Hourly Pricing program, the author of this article has saved $290.34 since enrolling in the program 26 months ago.
(See also: Keeping electricity both reliable and affordable while meeting load demand)
At this time, it is unclear how the time-of-use pricing would differ from the programs already offered by ComEd. The Illinois Commerce Commission told pv magazine USA, “Presently, talks at the Capitol are ongoing and fluid. It would be premature and inappropriate for the ICC to comment on bill impacts on language not fully formed or filed as legislation.”
More information about the time-of-use pricing can be found in the bill beginning on page 499.
Data Centers
Recent analysis from Synapse Energy Economics projected that if the retirement of coal plants are delayed so that more data centers can be powered up, CO2 pollution in Northern Illinois will increase by at least 64%.
The bill directs utilities to propose rules for new large-scale data centers to protect other electric consumers and ensure the facilities have plans to develop clean energy resources to reduce strain on the power grid. The bill also directs the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to propose environmental standards for large data centers.
Additional measures
Among other provisions, the bill:
- Works to improve infrastructure by increasing transmission and fixing interconnection issues to deploy renewable energy more quickly;
- Upgrades resource adequacy studies under the Illinois Environmental Protection Act to examine multiple clean energy options and select the least-cost pathway toward meeting the state’s renewable energy goals while ensuring adequate resources and electric system reliability;
- Requires “munis and coops” (electric providers other than ComEd and Ameren) to use industry best practices to forecast and plan for future electricity needs; and
- Directs utilities to propose rules for new large-scale data centers to protect other electric consumers and ensure the facilities have plans to develop clean energy resources to reduce strain on the power grid.
The bill makes tweaks to the Illinois Power Agency Renewable Energy Resource Fund and Illinois Solar for All program. For example, the bill would also direct the resource fund to also fund rebates, along with the purchasing of renewable energy credits currently in place.
Read about other solar-related bills state lawmakers are debating this legislative session here.
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