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Community-Driven Community Solar Update
Application Review and Scoring Schedule for 45-Day Application Window
As a result of the Modified 2024 Long-Term Plan, the Program opened an additional 45-day Community-Driven Community Solar (“CDCS”) application window on January 16, 2026. Since the submission deadline for this window was March 2, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. CPT, applications are no longer accepted for this 45-day window.
Submitted projects will be reviewed and scored in accordance with the CDCS scoring guidelines previously published in both the 2024 Long-Term Plan (pg. 173) and the Program Guidebook (pg. 166). Once scores are finalized, projects scoring a minimum of 10 points will be placed on a waitlist for when capacity becomes available. Any project submitted during this 45-day application window which qualifies for the waitlist will be placed behind projects submitted during the initial 90-day application window, regardless of score.
Please note: Due to the re-opening of the 2024 Long-Term Plan, an interim reallocation of 50% of remaining unused capacity on April 1, 2026, will be distributed among waitlisted projects across Program categories as the waitlist exists on April 1, 2026. If there is enough remaining unused capacity to award projects on the CDCS Group A and Group B waitlists, projects will be awarded based on the waitlist order on April 1, 2026.
Please see the proposed schedule below for application review and scoring:
- Application Review Period– Applications undergo initial review by Program Administrator (Approximately 4 weeks)
- Application Cure Period– AVs cure deficiencies identified by Program Administrator (Approximately 2 weeks)
- Application Scoring Period– Program Administrator begins scoring process for all relevant applications (those submitted without deficiencies and those that successfully cure deficiencies during the 2-week cure period) (Approximately 3 weeks)
- Scoring Cure Period– AVs are offered a chance to review initial score, dispute, and resolve any discrepancies (Approximately 2 weeks)
- Scores published– AVs wishing to appeal their project score will have two weeks from the receipt of scores to submit an appeal to the Program Administrator (TBD)
- Random selection eventto ordinally rank projects with tied scores (TBD)
- Final scoresand project selection published (TBD)

