Throughout May and June 2026, the Illinois Power Agency (Agency) received a series of questions from stakeholders seeking greater clarity on the amount of funding available in the Renewable Energy Resources Fund (RERF) to support Illinois Solar for All (ILSFA) projects.
This memo clarifies the current balance of the RERF and utility-funded balances, the amount of funding that is currently obligated to existing projects or otherwise unavailable to support project incentive payments, and the remaining balance available going into Program Year 2026-2027 (PY26-27) and potentially beyond.
RERF Budget
At the commencement of Program Year 2025-2026 (PY25-26), the Agency announced available incentives of $43.4 million from the RERF, with another $20 million in incentives added in November 2025 with the reopening and update to the 2024 Long-Term Plan that intended to make additional funds available for project incentives ahead of the expiring of the federal investment tax credits.
However, in May, the Agency announced the early closure of the PY25-26 ILSFA Program, which prompted stakeholders to request clarification on the status of the RERF with some parties identifying $78.1 million of a perceived RERF balance through the Illinois Comptroller reporting.
It is important to first understand that the Comptroller report provides a beginning balance and does not include the series of obligations or expenses assigned to the RERF but not yet paid. This includes outstanding project obligations (i.e., payments yet to be made for projects already under contract), program administration expenses, and funding holds (i.e., funds held for an alternative use).
The Agency re-evaluated internal accounting records to recalculate and affirm the available RERF balance (i.e., the amount of unobligated funding that is available to award REC Contracts to new projects). Utilizing a top-down approach, the Agency started with the April 2026 beginning balance of the RERF account (as reported by the Illinois Comptroller) and subtracted outstanding project obligations, program administration expenses, and funding holds, then added back funding allocated to projects that was not spent (this includes funding for Part II projects that were smaller than their original Part I approval value and projects that were cancelled, thus freeing up additional funding called deobligations).
This process confirmed an available RERF balance of $8.9 million at the end of PY25-26. See the table below, which provides a breakdown of each item to derive the RERF balance.
| Item | Amount ($) |
|---|---|
| Beginning Balance (April 2026) | $78.1 million |
| Project Obligations (contract obligations) | (-) $50.5 million |
| Remaining Program Administration Expenses (to pay) | (-) $6.3 million |
| Funding Holds (remain in account) | (-) $14.7 million |
| Project Deobligations | (+) $2.3 million |
| RERF Balance (available for new projects) | $8.9 million |
The Agency recognizes that the ILSFA Dashboard reflected an incentive budget that contained errors and inaccuracies. Upon review, the Agency found that program administration expenses had not been correctly removed from the available RERF balance at the commencement of PY25-26, and that project data (including deobligations) had not been properly reflected. These issues resulted in the discrepancies and the resulting difference between what the ILSFA Dashboard was communicating to stakeholders and what the ILSFA Dashboard should have been communicating – a lower overall availability.
The $8.9 million RERF balance that was not utilized for project incentives in PY25-26 has been rolled over to PY26-27, as discussed further in the “Going Forward – Program Year 2026-2027” section below. The RERF balance will first be used to support program administration expenses.
In the event RERF balance remains after the application of program administration expenses, the Agency will evaluate the best use of this funding, which may include utilization to support additional ILSFA projects in PY26-27 or PY27-28, or utilization in PY27-28 for program administration expenses.
Utility Collections-Funded Budget
Following the Agency’s comprehensive review of the RERF budget, a similarly comprehensive review was completed of the utility-funded budget. At the commencement of PY25-26, the Agency announced $68.6 million in available incentives. During its review, the Agency identified $8.3 million of additional project funding – increasing the utility-funded budget balance to $76.896 million. The additional funds were identified as a result of project data corrections inclusive of project deobligations.
With the project data corrections completed, the Agency processed additional project applications through the utility-funded budget during PY25-26 – a total of $76.1 million of projects were ICC approved, leaving $770,232* in utility-funded budget, which was rolled forward into PY26-27 to support new projects in the next program year.
* This amount has been corrected from the initial release of this memo.
Going Forward – Program Year 2026-2027
On June 24, 2026, the IPA announced the PY26-27 ILSFA incentive budgets, with a total ILSFA Incentive budget of $50,770,232. The ILSFA Incentive budget is inclusive of three sub-programs: $17,769,581 available for Distributed Generation projects (divided evenly between Small and Large Residential Solar), $20,308,092 for Community Solar Projects, and $12,692,558 for Non-Profit & Public Facility Projects.
The ILSFA Incentive budget consists of $50 million in utility-funding for PY26-27 and $770,232 in Utility-funded budget roll-over from PY25-26. The utility-funded incentive value does not include ILSFA program administration expenses, which will be paid through the $10 million in general RPS collections (as explained in the following paragraph) for PY26-27 and the RERF balance roll-over from PY25-26.
On June 24, 2026, Governor Pritzker signed the Clean and Reliable Grid and Affordability Act (CRGA) Trailer Bill into law, which includes a provision allocating up to $10 million in PY25-26 (and $5 million in PY26-27) from general RPS collections to be used for ILSFA program administration expenses. Further, as described above, the Agency rolled-over the $8.9 million in RERF balance to PY26-27, which will also initially be used to support ILSFA program administration expenses should the $10 million in general RPS Budget funding be exhausted.
Throughout the program year, the Agency will continue to actively track program administration expenses – in the event that the remaining balance of the RERF is not fully utilized for program administration expenses during PY26-27 the Agency will explore utilizing any remaining RERF balance for PY26-27 project incentives, PY27-28 project incentives and/or PY27-28 program administrator expenses.
The Agency also expects to see implementation efficiencies that translate to Program cost savings through the transition to a Joint Program Administrator, which will allow more funding for project incentives. More information about the transition to a Joint Program Administrator for Illinois Shines and Illinois Solar for All can be found in the July 2, 2026, announcement.
The ILSFA Dashboard has been updated to reflect the corrected sub-program incentive budgets for the 2025-2026 Program Year. This correction, and 2026-2027 Program Year sub-program budgets announced on June 24, 2026, have been updated to reflect the corrected Utility available roll-over calculation.
In the event stakeholders have any additional questions, inquiries should be sent to IPA.ILSFA@illinois.gov.