News Stories

Beginning today, March 4, 2026, the Illinois Shines Community Solar Subscriber Management Portal Feature is available to all Approved Vendors (AVs) and Designees participating in the Community Solar (CS) category. This feature is designed to improve efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility by moving subscriber data from SharePoint to the Program Portal. This feature was developed with the assistance of Illinois Shines AVs and Designees who provided valuable input that supported feature design.

The new feature centralizes subscriber data, standardizes reporting, enhances accuracy, and allows for self-service access, real-time updates, and subscription history tracking. Additionally, the feature will give AVs and Designees the ability to view and manage subscriptions, view unsubscribed Disclosure Forms, and import and export subscription data. AVs will also be able to manage project permissions and assign Designees to view and manage CS projects.

The Program has shared details of the functionality and launch timeline inweekly announcements and sent required action items (prior to and after launch) to AVs participating in the CS category. These required action items are detailed in the CS Subscriber Management Portal Feature section of the Portal Updates page.

To support the Community Solar Subscription Management Feature launch, the Program imported all current subscriber data into the Portal, including the most recent subscriber data included in the December Semi-Annual Verifications and the December–February Part II Quarterly Period. Prior to the final subscriber data import, the Program performed a series of data validation checks on all subscriber records. Subscriber data with any data validation errors were not imported into the Portal. The Program has identified records omitted from the final data import due to data validation errors and has shared those records with AVs. The Program requires AVs to review and cure data validation errors, as well as set up project delegation.

On February 26, 2026, the Program hosted an educational webinar on the new feature. A webinar recording, presentation slides, demo video, and Subscriber Management Portal Feature Training Guide are available at the Program Year Webinars page. The webinar and training guide include information on:

• Navigating dashboards and editable data fields

• Importing subscriber data and running validations

• Understanding user permissions and project delegation

• Managing Disclosure Form transfers

• Updating subscription sizes and moving subscribers between projects

• Completing historical reporting for Annual Reports

For additional support, the Program has resumed weekly office hours for March, with subscriber management specialists prepared to provide support. Details can be found in weekly program announcements.

Thank you!

Illinois Shines Program

admin@IllinoisShines.com