Red tape is raising costs and slowing the adoption of solar in Illinois, report says

Chicago Tribune

15-04-2025

In Illinois, solar installers often face 'complex and cumbersome' permitting requirements that can add months — and hundreds of dollars in cost — to the simplest residential roof project, according to a new report from environmentalists and consumer advocates.
In some places, installers reported having to submit applications in person, rather than via email or an online portal.
One installer complained about having to place six calls just to obtain a permit that had already been approved; others said they navigate needlessly complex and drawn-out review processes or face 'wacky' formatting requirements.
Among the results: The state is viewed as 'a very good market because of all the incentives, but an absolute nightmare to operate in,' an Illinois solar installer was quoted as saying. Aurora, Elmhurst and Joliet were among the places where installers reported problems.
The report, released Thursday by Environment Illinois Research & Education Center and the Illinois PIRG Education Fund, calls on the state to streamline the process by adopting instant permitting software — an approach already in place in California and on the way in Maryland.
Instant permitting software checks whether a project is compliant with national and local building codes and can approve a permit within a matter of minutes.
Options include SolarAPP+, which was developed by the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in collaboration with building and safety experts and is offered free to local governments.
'(Instant permitting) is a pretty easy way to just get more of these small-scale solar projects onto the grid faster, which can add up to a pretty significant amount of energy and ease the load on our grid,' said report co-author Theo Rosen, a climate campaigns associate for Environment Illinois.
The Illinois legislature is considering a bill that would require larger municipalities to offer instant permitting for residential solar roofs. The goal is to have instant permitting included in a larger clean energy bill that will likely be considered this spring, Rosen said.
She frames the issue in terms of untapped potential: In the United States, 45% of electricity use could be powered by rooftop solar, she said, but Illinois is only using about 2% of its rooftop solar potential.
According to a recent report from the Greenhouse Institute and the Brown University Climate Solutions Lab, instant permitting could spur solar roof adoption by reducing barriers and lowering costs for installers and customers.
Instant permitting could lead to an additional 35,000 to 36,000 home solar roofs in Illinois by 2030 and as much as an additional 300,000 by 2040, according to the report from the Greenhouse Institute, a research institute focused on climate change.
Those 300,000 solar roofs could eventually save 31 to 32 metric tons of CO2 equivalent, the report said — the rough equivalent of shutting down eight coal-fired power plants for a year.
In addition, the cost of a new solar roof could be reduced by as much as $2,100 by 2030 under instant permitting, and by more than $4,000 by 2040. An 8.6-kilowatt roof, about the median in Illinois, costs about $26,000 before federal and state tax incentives.
Rosen's report, which draws from interviews with staff at nine companies that install residential solar in Illinois, paints a picture of a permitting process that can be long, frustrating and unpredictable. The interviews were published anonymously because of concerns about the potential for retaliation by permitting authorities.
Among the towns and cities where installers said they faced obstacles was Aurora.
Solar installers said Aurora moves slowly when it comes to solar permits and is known for being unresponsive, with an online permitting system that 'frankly is a joke.'
A senior employee at a large solar company reported that he has had to go to Aurora in person — a 45-minute drive — just to get a response. He said he had to do that seven times in the past year: 'To me that's a big red flag that something is broken internally.'
Multiple solar installers said they are wary of taking jobs in Aurora, and several said they charge their Aurora customers a premium because of the extra work involved in getting a project approved. One installer said he doesn't want to do business in Aurora: 'We had one project, and only ever one, in Aurora, because we said we're never going back.'
Aurora Chief Development Services Officer John Curley responded that 96% of solar permits in the city are submitted via the online portal, and the vast majority of those users are using the portal regularly.
'We have additionally been challenging our software vendor to make portal improvements for several years and they are nearly ready to launch a newer public portal,' Curley said in an email interview.
Curley wrote that while the average time it takes to get a solar permit in Aurora is 70 days, only 5.6 of those days are due to Aurora reviewing the proposal, with the rest of the time taken up by 'private sector response' and contractor registration and payment.
As for the complaint that an installer had to visit seven times in one year to get responses, Curley wrote, 'Plan Review and Inspection results and responses are available 24/7 on-line. There is never a need to visit in person for this information.'
In communities such as Elmhurst, installers complained about the use of third-party permit reviewers, who aren't municipal employees.
'Some places you'll submit the application and you get an approval in two, three, four days,' an installer was quoted as saying. 'But with these third-party reviewers, we submit to the reviewer, they take about a week to accept the application, then they receive payment. Once they get payment, they take another week to review. Then they have comments. They send those to us. We respond. They then take another week to review our response and make us pay. Once we've paid, they take another week to review. And then they have another round of comments, and so on.'
Each round of review takes roughly three weeks, and there are often two or three rounds of comments in Elmhurst, the installer said: 'It just takes forever.'
Elmhurst officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Joliet also was named by more than one solar company as one of the more difficult and time-consuming jurisdictions to work with, a characterization the city disputes.
'Our city staff have successfully collaborated with over 100 contractors on various projects, including solar initiatives, and we are proud of our track record,' Joliet spokesperson Rosemaria DiBenedetto said in a written statement.
'The city of Joliet is committed to working diligently and effectively with contractors and businesses every day, offering support and guidance to ensure their success,' she said in the statement.
Among the complaints about Joliet: The city requires permit applications to be submitted via an online portal that an installer described as 'confusing … with its own set of crazy requirements.'
There are a variety of options for instant permitting, including privately developed software, but SolarAPP+ is a popular choice.
SolarAPP+ reduced the median number of days from permit submission to passed inspection from 47.5 to 33 in a subset of 2023 cases, according to a June review by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Clean Kilowatts LLC.
Michelle Knox, owner of WindSolarUSA, a renewable energy developer in Springfield, was one of the installers interviewed for Rosen's report. Knox told the Tribune she hasn't done residential solar roofs in Joliet, Aurora and Elmhurst and that she wasn't quoted regarding those places.
Knox said instant permitting would help Illinois solar developers stay on schedule and meet customer expectations and would reduce the time that understaffed towns and cities have to spend on solar permitting.
'It's a great thing,' she said. 'I think it's a win-win-win.'