Contacts:
Amanda Pankau, Director of Energy & Community Resiliency, Prairie Rivers Network 217-840-3057, apankau@prairierivers.org
Johnathan Hettinger, Communications Director, Climate Jobs Institute, 217-493-9791 hetting2@illinois.edu
Fixed pricing and narrow timelines limited a program meant to turn retired coal plants into solar and battery storage sites
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Five years after Illinois created the Coal to Solar and Energy Storage Initiative, a new report from Prairie Rivers Network and the Climate Jobs Institute at the University of Illinois finds the program built only three of the solar projects it set out to support and none of its proposed stand-alone battery storage projects. The report also explores how new, more flexible state programs are offering a continued path for this type of redevelopment.
Coal plant facilities have infrastructure, like connections to power lines, that make them attractive sites for solar and battery storage development. This type of redevelopment also helps replace the energy production, tax revenue, and jobs that are lost when a plant closes. It was with these co-benefits in mind that Illinois created the Initiative as part of the 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA).
After the bill passed, projects at 11 retired or retiring coal plant sites were announced, including six solar projects with small co-located battery storage, as well as five stand-alone battery storage projects. The three completed solar projects, at the Baldwin, Coffeen, and Newton plant sites came online in 2024 and 2026 and include 164 MW of solar and 6 MW of co-located battery storage. The three solar projects that were not completed were proposed at the Duck Creek, Hennepin, and Kincaid plant sites. The five proposed stand-alone battery storage projects — at the Edwards, Havana, Joppa, Waukegan, and Will County plant sites — were also not completed.
The report, based on interviews with Vistra Corp. and the Illinois Power Agency, county tax records, and a review of public program rules and legislative history, traces what happened at each site and why.
“We wanted to understand not just whether this program worked, but why it fell short where it did. The lesson for Illinois is pretty clear: Incentive structures need room to adjust as costs change, or projects simply won’t get built,” said Johnathan Hettinger, Communications Director of the Climate Jobs Institute.
The report finds that the financial incentive structure, a fixed $30 Renewable Energy Credit (REC) price, locked in at the program’s start in 2021, could not keep pace with inflation, rising financing costs, and supply chain pressures in the years that followed. Developers cancelled half of the proposed solar projects and all five proposed stand-alone battery storage projects, citing those changed economics. The three completed solar projects — at the Baldwin, Coffeen, and Newton plant sites — are now producing new property tax revenue for their host counties, though far less than the coal plants themselves historically generated. Job creation from the completed projects also came in well below what was originally projected.
“The Coal to Solar and Energy Storage Initiative is just one of several pieces of CEJA that aimed to support the communities impacted by retiring coal plants. As someone who has been working with these coal communities for years, it is disappointing to see this program fail to bring tax revenue and jobs to many of these places that need it,” said Amanda Pankau, report co-author and Director of Energy & Community Resiliency at Prairie Rivers Network. “However, these sites remain prime locations for solar and battery storage and other existing and new state programs may yet result in projects that benefit the electric grid and the local communities.”
Pankau is referring to other state energy programs that the report describes — including the Indexed REC Program, the Brownfield Solar Program, and the battery storage procurement created by the 2026 Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act (CRGA). These opportunities have the potential to support development at these same sites going forward, including projects that stalled under the original Initiative. The Energy Transition Community Grant Program is an example of another CEJA program that is supporting energy communities with annual grants to address the social and economic impacts of fossil fuel facility closures.
Vistra’s continued plans to develop some of the projects they originally proposed under the Initiative, as well as other projects at or near their coal facilities, provides evidence that these other programs are attractive to developers. Vistra’s website www.renewillinoispower.com provides information about the projects they have built and others that are still in development.
Report co-authors Prairie Rivers Network have also been working on ensuring safe and responsible coal ash clean-up as coal plants in Illinois retire. The report identifies unresolved coal ash cleanup and groundwater contamination as a separate, ongoing barrier to redevelopment at many coal plant sites. The state permitting process with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency will guide coal ash clean-up, but has so far required lengthy timelines for permitting review.
“There’s still a lot of work to do. Coal ash cleanup is unresolved at most of these sites, and until decisions are made and actions are taken to ensure groundwater pollution is resolved, some of the land at these sites will not be good candidates for redevelopment of any kind,” Pankau said.
Link to full report: “Status Update on Illinois’ Coal to Solar and Energy Storage Initiative”
About Prairie Rivers Network
At Prairie Rivers Network (PRN), we protect water, heal land, and inspire change. Using the creative power of science, law, and collective action, we protect and restore our rivers, return healthy soils and diverse wildlife to our lands, and transform how we care for the earth and for each other. PRN is the Illinois affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation. To learn more please visit www.prairierivers.org.
About the Climate Jobs Institute
The Climate Jobs Institute (CJI) informs Illinois’ clean energy transition through research that foregrounds workers and their communities. Established by the Illinois General Assembly in 2022, CJI is housed in the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is one of the first academic institutes dedicated to studying the economic and labor market impacts of decarbonization. CJI guides state climate policy to reduce emissions and promote high-quality job creation through original research, stakeholder engagement, and applied research collaborations. Learn more at ler.illinois.edu/climate-jobs-institute.
About the Illinois Coal Workers and Communities Listening Project
In 2025, the Climate Jobs Institute at the University of Illinois launched the Illinois Coal Workers & Communities Listening Project. This multi-disciplinary research initiative centers the experiences of Illinois coal workers and community members who lived through plant and mine closures — or are preparing for them now. The Climate Jobs Institute leads the Listening Project in collaboration with experts from Prairie Rivers Network, Harlem High School Documentary Project, University of Illinois Department of Urban & Regional Planning, Extension, Humanities Research Institute and Labor Education Program.
