Bill Text: IL HB0232 | 2017-2018 | 100th General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Amends the Illinois Power Agency Act. Makes changes to the definition of "distributed renewable energy generation device" by removing language limiting hydropower under the definition to hydropower that does not involve new construction of hydropower dams from the list of sources that power a device. Makes a similar change to the list of energy sources in the definition of "renewable energy resources". In a provision concerning the duties and responsibilities of the Resource Development Bureau, provides that the first electric generation or co-generation facility that the Illinois Power Agency develops, finances, or constructs may be a facility that uses coal produced in Illinois or a renewable energy facility (rather than shall be a facility that uses coal produced in Illinois). Removes language providing that the Agency may also develop, finance, or construct renewable energy facilities after work on the first facility has commenced. Amends the Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency, and Coal Resources Development Law of 1997 by making a similar change to the Act's definition of "renewable energy resources".

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Failed) 2019-01-08 - Session Sine Die [HB0232 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2017-HB0232-Introduced.html

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100TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY State of Illinois 2017 and 2018 HB0232 Introduced , by Rep. André Thapedi SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:
20 ILCS 687/6-3
20 ILCS 3855/1-10
20 ILCS 3855/1-80
Amends the Illinois Power Agency Act. Makes changes to the definition of "distributed renewable energy generation device" by removing language limiting hydropower under the definition to hydropower that does not involve new construction of hydropower dams from the list of sources that power a device. Makes a similar change to the list of energy sources in the definition of "renewable energy resources". In a provision concerning the duties and responsibilities of the Resource Development Bureau, provides that the first electric generation or co-generation facility that the Illinois Power Agency develops, finances, or constructs may be a facility that uses coal produced in Illinois or a renewable energy facility (rather than shall be a facility that uses coal produced in Illinois). Removes language providing that the Agency may also develop, finance, or construct renewable energy facilities after work on the first facility has commenced. Amends the Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency, and Coal Resources Development Law of 1997 by making a similar change to the Act's definition of "renewable energy resources".
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A BILL FOR
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AN ACT concerning State government.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
Section 5. The Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency, and
Coal Resources Development Law of 1997 is amended by changing
Section 6-3 as follows:
(20 ILCS 687/6-3)
(Section scheduled to be repealed on December 31, 2020)
Sec. 6-3. Renewable energy resources program.
(a) The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, to
be called the "Department" hereinafter in this Law, shall
administer the Renewable Energy Resources Program to provide
grants, loans, and other incentives to foster investment in and
the development and use of renewable energy resources.
(b) The Department shall establish eligibility criteria
for grants, loans, and other incentives to foster investment in
and the development and use of renewable energy resources.
These criteria shall be reviewed annually and adjusted as
necessary. The criteria should promote the goal of fostering
investment in and the development and use, in Illinois, of
renewable energy resources.
(c) The Department shall accept applications for grants,
loans, and other incentives to foster investment in and the

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development and use of renewable energy resources.
(d) To the extent that funds are available and
appropriated, the Department shall provide grants, loans, and
other incentives to applicants that meet the criteria specified
by the Department.
(e) The Department shall conduct an annual study on the use
and availability of renewable energy resources in Illinois.
Each year, the Department shall submit a report on the study to
the General Assembly. This report shall include suggestions for
legislation which will encourage the development and use of
renewable energy resources.
(f) As used in this Law, "renewable energy resources"
includes energy from wind, solar thermal energy, photovoltaic
cells and panels, dedicated crops grown for energy production
and organic waste biomass, hydropower that does not involve new
construction or significant expansion of hydropower dams, and
other such alternative sources of environmentally preferable
energy. "Renewable energy resources" does not include,
however, energy from the incineration or burning of waste wood,
tires, garbage, general household, institutional and
commercial waste, industrial lunchroom or office waste,
landscape waste, or construction or demolition debris.
(g) There is created the Energy Efficiency Investment Fund
as a special fund in the State Treasury, to be administered by
the Department to support the development of technologies for
wind, biomass, and solar power in Illinois. The Department may

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accept private and public funds, including federal funds, for
deposit into the Fund.
(Source: P.A. 94-793, eff. 5-19-06; 95-913, eff. 1-1-09.)
Section 10. The Illinois Power Agency Act is amended by
changing Sections 1-10 and 1-80 as follows:
(20 ILCS 3855/1-10)
Sec. 1-10. Definitions.
"Agency" means the Illinois Power Agency.
"Agency loan agreement" means any agreement pursuant to
which the Illinois Finance Authority agrees to loan the
proceeds of revenue bonds issued with respect to a project to
the Agency upon terms providing for loan repayment installments
at least sufficient to pay when due all principal of, interest
and premium, if any, on those revenue bonds, and providing for
maintenance, insurance, and other matters in respect of the
project.
"Authority" means the Illinois Finance Authority.
"Clean coal facility" means an electric generating
facility that uses primarily coal as a feedstock and that
captures and sequesters carbon dioxide emissions at the
following levels: at least 50% of the total carbon dioxide
emissions that the facility would otherwise emit if, at the
time construction commences, the facility is scheduled to
commence operation before 2016, at least 70% of the total

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carbon dioxide emissions that the facility would otherwise emit
if, at the time construction commences, the facility is
scheduled to commence operation during 2016 or 2017, and at
least 90% of the total carbon dioxide emissions that the
facility would otherwise emit if, at the time construction
commences, the facility is scheduled to commence operation
after 2017. The power block of the clean coal facility shall
not exceed allowable emission rates for sulfur dioxide,
nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulates and mercury for
a natural gas-fired combined-cycle facility the same size as
and in the same location as the clean coal facility at the time
the clean coal facility obtains an approved air permit. All
coal used by a clean coal facility shall have high volatile
bituminous rank and greater than 1.7 pounds of sulfur per
million btu content, unless the clean coal facility does not
use gasification technology and was operating as a conventional
coal-fired electric generating facility on June 1, 2009 (the
effective date of Public Act 95-1027).
"Clean coal SNG brownfield facility" means a facility that
(1) has commenced construction by July 1, 2015 on an urban
brownfield site in a municipality with at least 1,000,000
residents; (2) uses a gasification process to produce
substitute natural gas; (3) uses coal as at least 50% of the
total feedstock over the term of any sourcing agreement with a
utility and the remainder of the feedstock may be either
petroleum coke or coal, with all such coal having a high

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bituminous rank and greater than 1.7 pounds of sulfur per
million Btu content unless the facility reasonably determines
that it is necessary to use additional petroleum coke to
deliver additional consumer savings, in which case the facility
shall use coal for at least 35% of the total feedstock over the
term of any sourcing agreement; and (4) captures and sequesters
at least 85% of the total carbon dioxide emissions that the
facility would otherwise emit.
"Clean coal SNG facility" means a facility that uses a
gasification process to produce substitute natural gas, that
sequesters at least 90% of the total carbon dioxide emissions
that the facility would otherwise emit, that uses at least 90%
coal as a feedstock, with all such coal having a high
bituminous rank and greater than 1.7 pounds of sulfur per
million btu content, and that has a valid and effective permit
to construct emission sources and air pollution control
equipment and approval with respect to the federal regulations
for Prevention of Significant Deterioration of Air Quality
(PSD) for the plant pursuant to the federal Clean Air Act;
provided, however, a clean coal SNG brownfield facility shall
not be a clean coal SNG facility.
"Commission" means the Illinois Commerce Commission.
"Costs incurred in connection with the development and
construction of a facility" means:
(1) the cost of acquisition of all real property,
fixtures, and improvements in connection therewith and

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equipment, personal property, and other property, rights,
and easements acquired that are deemed necessary for the
operation and maintenance of the facility;
(2) financing costs with respect to bonds, notes, and
other evidences of indebtedness of the Agency;
(3) all origination, commitment, utilization,
facility, placement, underwriting, syndication, credit
enhancement, and rating agency fees;
(4) engineering, design, procurement, consulting,
legal, accounting, title insurance, survey, appraisal,
escrow, trustee, collateral agency, interest rate hedging,
interest rate swap, capitalized interest, contingency, as
required by lenders, and other financing costs, and other
expenses for professional services; and
(5) the costs of plans, specifications, site study and
investigation, installation, surveys, other Agency costs
and estimates of costs, and other expenses necessary or
incidental to determining the feasibility of any project,
together with such other expenses as may be necessary or
incidental to the financing, insuring, acquisition, and
construction of a specific project and starting up,
commissioning, and placing that project in operation.
"Department" means the Department of Commerce and Economic
Opportunity.
"Director" means the Director of the Illinois Power Agency.
"Demand-response" means measures that decrease peak

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electricity demand or shift demand from peak to off-peak
periods.
"Distributed renewable energy generation device" means a
device that is:
(1) powered by wind, solar thermal energy,
photovoltaic cells and panels, biodiesel, crops and
untreated and unadulterated organic waste biomass, tree
waste, and hydropower that does not involve new
construction or significant expansion of hydropower dams;
(2) interconnected at the distribution system level of
either an electric utility as defined in this Section, an
alternative retail electric supplier as defined in Section
16-102 of the Public Utilities Act, a municipal utility as
defined in Section 3-105 of the Public Utilities Act, or a
rural electric cooperative as defined in Section 3-119 of
the Public Utilities Act;
(3) located on the customer side of the customer's
electric meter and is primarily used to offset that
customer's electricity load; and
(4) limited in nameplate capacity to no more than 2,000
kilowatts.
"Energy efficiency" means measures that reduce the amount
of electricity or natural gas required to achieve a given end
use. "Energy efficiency" also includes measures that reduce the
total Btus of electricity and natural gas needed to meet the
end use or uses.

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"Electric utility" has the same definition as found in
Section 16-102 of the Public Utilities Act.
"Facility" means an electric generating unit or a
co-generating unit that produces electricity along with
related equipment necessary to connect the facility to an
electric transmission or distribution system.
"Governmental aggregator" means one or more units of local
government that individually or collectively procure
electricity to serve residential retail electrical loads
located within its or their jurisdiction.
"Local government" means a unit of local government as
defined in Section 1 of Article VII of the Illinois
Constitution.
"Municipality" means a city, village, or incorporated
town.
"Person" means any natural person, firm, partnership,
corporation, either domestic or foreign, company, association,
limited liability company, joint stock company, or association
and includes any trustee, receiver, assignee, or personal
representative thereof.
"Project" means the planning, bidding, and construction of
a facility.
"Public utility" has the same definition as found in
Section 3-105 of the Public Utilities Act.
"Real property" means any interest in land together with
all structures, fixtures, and improvements thereon, including

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lands under water and riparian rights, any easements,
covenants, licenses, leases, rights-of-way, uses, and other
interests, together with any liens, judgments, mortgages, or
other claims or security interests related to real property.
"Renewable energy credit" means a tradable credit that
represents the environmental attributes of a certain amount of
energy produced from a renewable energy resource.
"Renewable energy resources" includes energy and its
associated renewable energy credit or renewable energy credits
from wind, solar thermal energy, photovoltaic cells and panels,
biodiesel, anaerobic digestion, crops and untreated and
unadulterated organic waste biomass, tree waste, hydropower
that does not involve new construction or significant expansion
of hydropower dams, and other alternative sources of
environmentally preferable energy. For purposes of this Act,
landfill gas produced in the State is considered a renewable
energy resource. "Renewable energy resources" does not include
the incineration or burning of tires, garbage, general
household, institutional, and commercial waste, industrial
lunchroom or office waste, landscape waste other than tree
waste, railroad crossties, utility poles, or construction or
demolition debris, other than untreated and unadulterated
waste wood.
"Revenue bond" means any bond, note, or other evidence of
indebtedness issued by the Authority, the principal and
interest of which is payable solely from revenues or income

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derived from any project or activity of the Agency.
"Sequester" means permanent storage of carbon dioxide by
injecting it into a saline aquifer, a depleted gas reservoir,
or an oil reservoir, directly or through an enhanced oil
recovery process that may involve intermediate storage,
regardless of whether these activities are conducted by a clean
coal facility, a clean coal SNG facility, a clean coal SNG
brownfield facility, or a party with which a clean coal
facility, clean coal SNG facility, or clean coal SNG brownfield
facility has contracted for such purposes.
"Sourcing agreement" means (i) in the case of an electric
utility, an agreement between the owner of a clean coal
facility and such electric utility, which agreement shall have
terms and conditions meeting the requirements of paragraph (3)
of subsection (d) of Section 1-75, (ii) in the case of an
alternative retail electric supplier, an agreement between the
owner of a clean coal facility and such alternative retail
electric supplier, which agreement shall have terms and
conditions meeting the requirements of Section 16-115(d)(5) of
the Public Utilities Act, and (iii) in case of a gas utility,
an agreement between the owner of a clean coal SNG brownfield
facility and the gas utility, which agreement shall have the
terms and conditions meeting the requirements of subsection
(h-1) of Section 9-220 of the Public Utilities Act.
"Substitute natural gas" or "SNG" means a gas manufactured
by gasification of hydrocarbon feedstock, which is

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substantially interchangeable in use and distribution with
conventional natural gas.
"Total resource cost test" or "TRC test" means a standard
that is met if, for an investment in energy efficiency or
demand-response measures, the benefit-cost ratio is greater
than one. The benefit-cost ratio is the ratio of the net
present value of the total benefits of the program to the net
present value of the total costs as calculated over the
lifetime of the measures. A total resource cost test compares
the sum of avoided electric utility costs, representing the
benefits that accrue to the system and the participant in the
delivery of those efficiency measures, as well as other
quantifiable societal benefits, including avoided natural gas
utility costs, to the sum of all incremental costs of end-use
measures that are implemented due to the program (including
both utility and participant contributions), plus costs to
administer, deliver, and evaluate each demand-side program, to
quantify the net savings obtained by substituting the
demand-side program for supply resources. In calculating
avoided costs of power and energy that an electric utility
would otherwise have had to acquire, reasonable estimates shall
be included of financial costs likely to be imposed by future
regulations and legislation on emissions of greenhouse gases.
(Source: P.A. 97-96, eff. 7-13-11; 97-239, eff. 8-2-11; 97-491,
eff. 8-22-11; 97-616, eff. 10-26-11; 97-813, eff. 7-13-12;
98-90, eff. 7-15-13.)

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(20 ILCS 3855/1-80)
Sec. 1-80. Resource Development Bureau. Upon its
establishment by the Agency, the Resource Development Bureau
has the following duties and responsibilities:
(a) At the Agency's discretion, conduct feasibility
studies on the construction of any facility. Funding for a
study shall come from either:
(i) fees assessed by the Agency on municipal
electric systems, governmental aggregators, unit or
units of local government, or rural electric
cooperatives requesting the feasibility study; or
(ii) an appropriation from the General Assembly.
(b) If the Agency undertakes the construction of a
facility, moneys generated from the sale of revenue bonds
by the Authority for the facility shall be used to
reimburse the source of the money used for the facility's
feasibility study.
(c) The Agency may develop, finance, construct, or
operate electric generation and co-generation facilities
that use indigenous coal or renewable resources, or both,
financed with bonds issued by the Authority on behalf of
the Agency. Any such facility that uses coal must be a
clean coal facility and must be constructed in a location
where the geology is suitable for carbon sequestration. The
Agency may also develop, finance, construct, or operate a

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carbon sequestration facility.
(1) The Agency may enter into contractual
arrangements with private and public entities,
including but not limited to municipal electric
systems, governmental aggregators, and rural electric
cooperatives, to plan, site, construct, improve,
rehabilitate, and operate those electric generation
and co-generation facilities. No contract shall be
entered into by the Agency that would jeopardize the
tax-exempt status of any bond issued in connection with
a project for which the Agency entered into the
contract.
(2) The Agency shall hold at least one public
hearing before entering into any such contractual
arrangements. At least 30-days' notice of the hearing
shall be given by publication once in each week during
that period in 6 newspapers within the State, at least
one of which has a circulation area that includes the
location of the proposed facility.
(3) The first facility that the Agency develops,
finances, or constructs may shall be a facility that
uses coal produced in Illinois or a renewable energy
facility. The Agency may, however, also develop,
finance, or construct renewable energy facilities
after work on the first facility has commenced.
(4) The Agency may not develop, finance, or

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construct a nuclear power plant.
(5) The Agency shall assess fees to applicants
seeking to partner with the Agency on projects.
(d) Use of electricity generated by the Agency's
facilities. The Agency may supply electricity produced by
the Agency's facilities to municipal electric systems,
governmental aggregators, or rural electric cooperatives
in Illinois. The electricity shall be supplied at cost.
(1) Contracts to supply power and energy from the
Agency's facilities shall provide for the effectuation
of the policies set forth in this Act.
(2) The contracts shall also provide that,
notwithstanding any provision in the Public Utilities
Act, entities supplied with power and energy from an
Agency facility shall supply the power and energy to
retail customers at the same price paid to purchase
power and energy from the Agency.
(e) Electric utilities shall not be required to purchase
electricity directly or indirectly from facilities developed
or sponsored by the Agency.
(f) The Agency may sell excess capacity and excess energy
into the wholesale electric market at prevailing market rates;
provided, however, the Agency may not sell excess capacity or
excess energy through the procurement process described in
Section 16-111.5 of the Public Utilities Act.
(g) The Agency shall not directly sell electric power and

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energy to retail customers. Nothing in this paragraph shall be
construed to prohibit sales to municipal electric systems,
governmental aggregators, or rural electric cooperatives.
(Source: P.A. 99-536, eff. 7-8-16.)