While the the FY2018 Illinois budget finally appropriated a significant sum to pension payments, over $6.6 billion to the state’s five employee pension funds, it still falls short on the $7.87 billion appropriation need projected by COGFA for this year, and does not address the $129.5 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

After Senate President John Cullerton declined to send education funding reform bill SB1 to Governor Bruce Rauner’s desk on Monday, Gov. Rauner called a special session of the General Assembly, convening Wednesday at noon. (Read Official Proclamation) As legislators head back to Springfield, here are the main points you need to know:

Updated: July 26, 2017

An Illinois Gaming Board rule limiting property ownership to video terminal operators– companies that operate video gambling machines– seems to disproportionately affect one company and individual, Rick Heidner, in particular. The Gaming Board’s motivation to change the rules are unclear, as Heidner mounts a high-intensity lobbying effort to change the rules to his advantage.

The latest gaming bill effort, one that would legalize fantasy sports, seems doomed to die in the House this year, as the bill’s sponsors express little faith it will move. In addition, sponsors and lobbyists connected to the bill, HB479, believe House Speaker Mike Madigan is reluctant to call up gaming bills for a vote.

As the dust settles in Springfield after the SB6 showdown, outposts of higher education across the state are checking their mailboxes for the $7.945 billion allotted to them by the new law. Some portions of the money will come faster than others, with $3.2 billion headed toward university employee pension funds. Until then, SB6 provisions for FY17 afford higher education $1,836 billion. Combined with federal dollars and past-due FY17 funding, the sector is slated to receive $4.125 billion for FY18 overall.

The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules sped through its agenda in less than twenty minutes, pausing to defer rules from the Illinois Gaming Board and to question a Board of Education representative about the appropriateness of an emergency rule. One rule regarding payments to Medicaid providers, that had been expected to draw attention, was passed without any questions.

Tomorrow’s meeting of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules in Chicago (JCAR) will take up 31 items, but only two, a rule that changes payments to Medicaid providers and a rule dealing with cross-ownership of bars with video gaming and gaming terminal operators, are expected to draw discussion. A third item not even on the agenda, a rule creating the Community Reinvestment Program, which would eliminate a home senior care program, the Community Care Program.

While Gov. Bruce Rauner’s efforts to redraw state worker contracts is tangled in the 4th District Appellate Court, his demand for require state workers to pay a heftier portion of their own health insurance costs was overridden in the budget appropriations bill. Making matters more complicated, a decision to seek bond funds to pay the remaining debt could reveal what the bond market really thinks of Illinois’ credit-worthiness.

As school funding deadlines loom and Springfield readies itself for another fiscal battle, the bills at the center of the fray are Democratic-authored Senate Bill 1, and its Republican-backed alternatives: Senate Bill 1124 and House Bill 4069.

SB1, “The Evidence-Based Funding for Student Success Act”, includes authorization for a new funding model to account for $565 million in primary and secondary education spending–part of the $7.67 billion found in the recently-passed budget–and creates a new school funding formula, that eliminates the annual Chicago block grant and provides Chicago more money to pay down its towering teacher pension debt. The combination of education funding in SB1 and SB6, the FY2018 appropriations bill, represent a $730 million increase compared to FY2017.

The Illinois Commerce Commission convened on Wednesday in Chicago for a pair of policy discussion panels on 2016’s Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA) and its impact on renewable energy. The two panels, which drew a packed hearing room, first concentrating on the status of the immediate impact of FEJA’s changes to the renewable energy market in Illinois, and then second on how technology will improve renewable energy adoption in Illinois.

Panel 1: Illinois’ Current Renewable Energy Reading & FEJA’s Renewable Objectives

Links to Presentations

• Anthony Star, Director, Illinois Power Agency


• MeLena Hessel, Policy Advocate, Environmental Law & Policy Center


• Becky Stanfield, Senior Director, Western States, Vote Solar


• Andrew Barbeau, President, The Accelerate Group

While each of the presenters focused on a different component of renewable energy policy, all noted the policy and technical challenges that will come with the increase of distributed generation as rooftop solar and campus/microgrid-scale battery use increases.

Becky Stanfield from Western States noted that while Illinois was ranked 37th among states for solar installation, it is a national leader in wind generation, at 6th place with 4 gigawatts of generation, 5.5% of total generation capacity in Illinois. By 2030, she projected 3 gigawatts of new solar would be installed along with 1.3 gigawatts of new wind production.

Following the presentations, the first panel had more than 45 minutes for questions and answers, including a first: Accepting questions from the audience by Twitter.

Commissioner John Rosales asked the first panel: “How do you see community solar working?” referencing a provision in FEJA that allows shares of solar panel output to be sold directly to consumers.

MeLena Hessel from ELPC replied that other states implement community solar programs and that Illinois merely needs to choose an existing model and improve upon it.

“Who would regulate those companies?” asked Rosales.

Anthony Star, from IPA responded, “Under the law, IPA will propose terms and conditions to ICC for approval,” but the study to develop  a process, “is still in its infancy,” he said, with much more work to do before something is proposed.

Both Hessel and Stanfield jumped in to point out that ICC will need to ensure consumer protection controls, since the solar energy product will be marketed to retail consumers. “The last thing a developer wants is a disgruntled customer. If you don’t have standard consumer protections, that can’t help the process,” said Stanfield.

“When you talk about consumer protection, what role do you see for the commission to ensure predators are stopped and education has an effect?” asked Comm. Miguel DelValle. “On the [electricity] choice side we don’t see that, because there’s still a lot of marketing problems out there.”

The panel provided unclear answers, “Hopefully we’ll see some overlap for consumer protections between consumer protection for choice and community solar,” said Hessel.

Comm. Sherina Maye Edwards then asked, “What in FEJA points to success [with renewables]?”

Andrew Barbeau from Accelerate replied, “While FEJA is a great first step, we didn’t raise [Renewable Portfolio Standard] targets, the broader question is how do we have a diverse mix of generation. If we focus on putting the customer first, and not the generators, that’s a great start.”

Stanfield then said, “The two big unfinished pieces of business from FEJA is integrated system planning for the distribution system and batteries, how do we deploy batteries to serve all the things we’ll need?”

The Citizens Utility Board then asked the day’s only question by Twitter, “What policy change would you make from the status quo to advance Illinois’ energy goals?”

From Barbeau: “To determine a way to value distributed generation, and how to accommodate the load, since we didn’t tackle load planning and batteries.”

Hessel: “We’ve been talking about transmission, but you don’t see that in FEJA, how to incorporate that into our policy.”

Stanfield: “Also electric vehicles are part of the system and we need to have a strategy for that.”

Star: “We seem to write our legislation every 10 years. How quickly will things happen…10 years might be too long.”

A question from the moderator: Are there any factors that make land attractive for solar?

Hessel: “Proximity to the substation. After that, it’s being flat, not shaded. For brownfields, depending on the contamination, the real advantage for brownfields is that you don’t have to dig into the ground for solar, you can use ballast.”

Star: “On the non-brownfield solar, a large portion of the area of the state is territory of rural electric coops. For people looking for sites, anecdotally we’re hearing confusion, wondering if the land is in a rural coop or a utility. Coops are not regulated by the state.”

Panel 2: Integration of Renewables in Illinois, a 3D View: Distribution & Transmission, Development of Technology, & Deference

Links to Presentations

• Shay Bahramirad, Director, Distribution System Planning, Smart Grid and Innovation, ComEd


• Amy Francetic, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs & New Ventures, Invenergy


• Matthew R. Tomc, Director & Assistant General Counsel, Ameren


• James P. Gignac, Environmental & Energy Counsel, Illinois Attorney General’s Office

The second panel concentrated more on the technologies necessary to implement FEJA’s renewables components and the related regulation challenges. James Gignac from the Illinois Attorney General’s office set the tone by pointing out that the cost of wind electricity production dropped by 36% in 2016 and that, “Fossil [electricity production] is being retired much faster than renewables are being added.”

“Flat demand for electricity and low cost of gas has created an oversupply, dropping prices. The market is signaling through low prices that less efficient generation should exit the market. The effect of renewables [being added] is secondary,” to the creation of demand for renewables, Gignac said.

Comm. Rosales asked, “Is there a way with energy storage that there would be an opportunity for there just to be an [Independent System Operator] or [Regional Transmission Organization] to streamline the renewables [delivery], since there would be energy storage?”

Matthew Tomc from Ameren jumped in, “That’s where we see the rapid change in technology. Once you have storage at a utility-scale level, which is where you can address renewables, which struggles with intermittence. How can you use that technology to meet customer needs. You could see storage at the utility, local and customer level.” Then, he added, “The commission’s mission is to look after consumers to make sure services are reliably delivered.”

Gignac countered, “We don’t have to wait for large scale deployment of batteries to see an increased amount of wind and solar on the grid. Forecasting, improvement of data analytics, demand flexibility, all those things work towards making renewables grow.”

Amy Francetic, whose company backs startups in energy data analytics, then said, “What is unique in battery storage, is you don’t have to ramp them up or down, you just turn them on. Once you have that system available to respond to demand, you can use it for backup, but also demand response to shave the prices off your energy bill. For a building, campus or microgrid, they can reduce the overall energy bills for the day.”

Comm. Rosales then added, “Is it more expedient to [serve] that baseload [demand] with gas, based on what the price will be? The cheapest power is produced at scale in rural areas. The production of rural wind and solar is cheaper than rooftop solar. Because the siting and installation costs are spread out. The challenge is delivering it to the demand centers, That’s why you see it so big in Texas and Oklahoma. Critical to renewables will be investment in long-haul transmission to bring it to where it is needed.”

Chairman Brien Sheahan directed the final question to Gignac from the A.G.’s Office. “What are your thoughts on investment in the cost of the distribution network in facilitating the integration [of renewables]?”

Gignac said, “The traditional generation we have now, we have costs we’re paying in to ensure reliability of those resources. That’s why we pay for spinning reserves or reserve margins when a big unit comes off line. As we integrate and shift generation [to renewables] we’ll have new costs on distribution, like on grid regions. That will be a shift from what we’re already paying for large centralized power plants.”