The IRS’s 2026 notice regarding updated eligible Energy Communities is set to impact 1,112 pre-operational projects across eight states and 154 MSAs, analysis by NPM can reveal. The 29 June IRS notice updates the list of MSAs and Non-MSAs that qualify as energy communities by meeting fossil fuel employment threshold and the unemployment rate requirement for the year. The 154 counties that are mentioned in this analysis appeared in the IRS 2025 noticed as either Vintage 1 or Vintage 2, but did not appear in the 2026 notice in either Vintage 1 or 2.

The notice impacted eight states especially Colorado (52 counties), Texas (31), Indiana (25), Illinois (22), Louisiana (15). Kentucky (6), Alaska (2) and Nevada (1) were also impacted by the notice. Of the 154 counties impacted, NPM has identified 1,112 projects in 127 of the counties totaling 175.25 GW. A total of 784 projects and 174.47 GW fall in the Utility-Scale bucket, most notably in ERCOT (240 applications), MISO (129), PJM (49), SPP (79)) and Colorado Springs (14). The impact by by sector was as follows; Solar (291), Storage (207), Solar | Storage (108), Onshore Wind (95).

A total of 155 developer combinations were impacted by the loss of energy community status according to fossil fuel employment and below average unemployment rate. In total there are 23 developers with greater than 1 GW of pipeline that will not be able to receive the 10% credit. They top 10 are; Invenergy (4.2 GW – 20 applications), NextEra (4.10 GW – 16), Entergy Louisana (3.12 GW – 9), Hecate Energy (2.41 GW – 4), Solar Proponent (2.23 GW – 4), Leeward (1.89 GW – 11), Samsung C&T (1.84 GW – 13), RWE (1.78GW – 8), Tenaska (1.66 GW – 1), Sunraycer (1.56 GW – 13). The full list can be found here and exporting to csv.

Notably, NPM Milestones reveals there are 112 applications and 22.72 GW that have a planned commercial operation date before June 2027, but will no longer be eligible for the tax credit. By queue they were in ERCOT(37 – 8.57 GW), SPP (7 – 977 MW ), PJM (5 – 745 MW), MISO (2 – 400 MW).

In the distributed generation bucket a total of 327 applications and 726 MW were impacted. US Solar (10), Rye Development (6), Pivot (5), Standard (5), Trajectory Energy Partners (5), Generate, (3), Cypress Creek (3), Nexamp (3) are all set to lose the credit for their respective applications. In particular the Excel Co Community Queue saw 228 applications impacted,

For those applications with a go operational date in the next 12 months a total of 60 applications and 194 MW were impacted, most notably in the Illinois Block Queue where 39 projects can no longer claim the credit. Livingston (10) and Knock (9) are most hard-hit by the change in energy community status.

On the flip-side 30 July 2026, NPM reported how 81 newly minted energy communities unlocked 1,473 pre-operational projects for the 10% credit. To read more click through.

NPM plans to incorporate the 2026 IRS Energy Communities into the Interconnection Queues > Key Data Points filter in the coming weeks. In summary the new IRS notice meant;

– 698 counties continue as energy communities

– 81 newly minted counties become energy communities

– 154 counties are no longer energy communities

– 89 return as energy communities having not appeared in the 2025 notice but did appear in either 2024 or 2023.