Legislators, Community Leaders, Businesses Show Support for Transformational Clean Energy Legislation

Clean Energy Jobs Act would bring new jobs, especially to communities of color and rural counties throughout Illinois SPRINGFIELD, IL — Illinois lawmakers joined the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition today to press for bold clean energy legislation. The coalition of environmental, environmental justice, healthcare, consumer, business and faith leaders held a series of news conferences…

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Bill wants Illinois to go all-in on green energy

Mitch Dudek | Chicago Sun-Times A bill seeking to move Illinois to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 was introduced in Springfield on Thursday. Renewable energy only accounts for about 4 percent of electricity in Illinois, according to a spokesman for the the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, the nonprofit group that drafted the legislation. Nuclear,…

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Solar seen as bright career path at Illinois community colleges

Lauren Robinson | Energy News Network Illinois’ Future Energy Jobs Act included funding to make solar training more accessible to lower-income residents. There was an energy about the 11 students gathered on a sunny December Saturday outside a South Side Chicago construction shop. Today, they’d put on their work gloves and protective glasses and put…

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More than 3,500 solar panels being installed at the city’s water reclamation center to generate power for Naperville

<b>Erin Hegarty | Chicago Tribune</b> Installation of more than 3,500 solar panels that could generate more than 1.6 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually is expected to begin this summer at Naperville’s Springbrook Water Reclamation Center. When completed, the six acres of high-efficiency solar panels will produce enough energy to power 145 homes a year,…

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Programs Train Workers To Meet Demand For Solar Installers

Ryan Denham | WGLT, NPR After the training, the 31-year-old received four jobs offers and moved to Colorado, where he installs solar panels on homes. “It was definitely a big move. But it did pan out well,” Laughlin said. Laughlin is one of thousands of workers who’ve benefited from a solar energy boom in the…

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Community Solar for IL’s Environmental Justice Communities

Samuel Garcia | NRDC Expert Blog The Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA) mandates that at least 25 percent of the Illinois Solar for All Program’s incentives be allocated to projects located within environmental justice communities. On January 17, Elevate Energy and the Illinois Power Agency (IPA) held a stakeholder engagement session to address how the program will…

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Champaign County Board Approves 1200-Acre Solar Farm Near Sidney

Jim Meadows | Will Radio, Illinois Public Media At nearly 1200 acres and with a generating capacity of 150 megawatts, the solar farm would be the largest in the state, even bigger than a 99 megawatt project planned for Perry County in southern Illinois. Some county board members were doubtful about taking so much farmland…

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Solar panels to power 145 homes coming to Naperville

Marie Wilson | Daily Herald Naperville has been chosen as one of four municipalities across the state to receive a solar-power project through a nonprofit energy organization that powers 32 Illinois communities. Construction is set to begin this summer on a 1-megawatt solar array of 3,500 panels on six acres at the city’s Springbrook Water…

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