On February 26th, the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) issued its Proposed Order of the Illinois Power Agency’s (IPA) Long-Term Renewable Resources Procurement Plan (LTRRPP). A range of issues were raised by stakeholders and commented on by the ICC in the draft order.

The ICC has also made a variety of significant changes to the Draft Plan as it was filed on December 4, 2017. One of the most substantial changes is as follows:

• Exclusion of IL municipal, rural cooperative, and Mt. Carmel service territories from participation in the Draft Plan. Reasoning behind this includes the fact that these utility groups were not specified in enabling legislation, not included in past Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), and did not contribute to renewable energy funds. Details of the comments from the intervenors and the ICC can be found in Section X on Page 163 of the proposed order.

A summary of other changes can be found below and as outlined in this article from PV Magazine.

• Ruling on the IL Solar For All program that a minimum floor of 50% of energy savings must be passed on to low and moderate income households by approved vendors.
• Adjustments to adjacent state requirements’ five public interest category scoring weights, potentially impacting the eligibility of in-state and out-of-state solar facilities.
• Adjustments in designating brownfields for the funds allocation for solar development in this sector.
• Reduction of requirements for producing permits in project approval process.
• Allowances for direct current installations in net-metering and system sizes.
• Adjustments to true-up payment process for community solar.

There is reportedly one more round of responses by intervenors and the ICC during March before the Final Plan is released on April 3rd. The changes listed above will not be finalized until the Final Plan is released.

For more information on the original Draft Plan or the revised Draft Plan that was filed with the ICC, please view our previous blog posts on those topics in the links provided.