Energy Transition Community Grant

Energy Transition Community Grant

Funds community-level clean-energy initiatives in Illinois impacted by energy sector shifts, supporting local recovery and workforce transition.

The Energy Transition Community Grant is a state grant programme administered by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) under the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), the landmark 2021 Illinois clean-energy legislation. It targets communities and organisations in areas economically affected by the closure of coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants — localities where a major energy employer has shut down or is in the process of closing, displacing workers and reducing local tax revenue. Annual appropriations under CEJA allow up to $40 million per year to be deployed through this programme. Contact for programme inquiries is CEO.CEJA@illinois.gov, and DCEO administers the broader CEJA suite of 13 named programmes from that same contact point.

Eligible applicants are nonprofits, universities, research organisations, and local governments or community organisations in or directly serving energy-transition-impacted communities as defined under CEJA. For-profit companies and individuals are not eligible. Individual award sizes are not published in available source materials; the $40 million annual pool is distributed across qualifying community applicants. Application cycles and specific Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) timelines are not set out in current source materials — the programme is treated as rolling or continuous pending publication of individual NOFOs, which are announced through the DCEO website and the CEJA programme announcements page.

Applications should document the specific fossil-fuel or nuclear facility closure impacting the applicant community, the nature of the economic disruption, and how proposed activities address transition needs — workforce retraining, business development, infrastructure replacement, or community economic planning. DCEO evaluates proposals against CEJA's equity and transition objectives. Applicants in communities with documented plant closures and organised community response plans are best positioned. Monitoring DCEO's CEJA programme announcements page (dceo.illinois.gov/ceja/ceja-program-announcements.html) is the most reliable way to catch NOFO releases.