What is Community-Driven Community Solar?
- Community-Driven Community Solar (CDCS) expands the benefits of traditional Community Solar by fostering local engagement, ownership, and economic opportunity. Designed for larger-scale projects up to 5 MW, CDCS ensures that the communities hosting these solar installations directly benefit—whether through wealth-building, nonprofit partnerships, or meaningful local participation.
- Like traditional Community Solar, CDCS allows customers to subscribe to a shared solar project, offsetting their electricity costs with energy credits from the system’s production. These projects must be within the same utility service territory as subscribers, ensuring local impact. However, unlike general renewable energy supply offers, CDCS projects are new, locally developed solar installations that directly contribute to Illinois’ clean energy expansion.
Community-Driven Community Solar Financing
- Subscribers support the growth of solar energy in Illinois while gaining financial benefits through net metering, where their portion of energy production is credited on their utility bills. Bridge financing provided by U.S. EPA’s congressionally authorized and legally awarded Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Solar for All program, will help to accelerate project completion. CDCS creates a pathway for communities to actively participate in and benefit from the clean energy transition.
- To support the development of these large-scale projects, solar bridge loans provide critical interim financing, covering the gap between project construction costs and the receipt of federal tax credits (including elective pay), renewable energy credits (RECs) or other financial incentives. By offering short-term funding solutions, bridge loans enable projects to move forward without delays, ensuring that communities can quickly access the benefits of clean energy.
- Financing will only be available for projects selected by the Illinois Power Agency under the Community-Driven Community Solar program in Illinois Shines.