The IRS’s 2026 notice regarding updated eligible Energy Communities is set to impact 1,473 pre-operational projects, analysis by NPM can reveal. The 29 June 2026 notice updates the list of MSAs and non-MSAs that qualify as energy communities by meeting the Fossil Fuel Employment threshold and the unemployment rate requirement for calendar year 2025.

The notice impacted seven states most notably in Minnesota and Ohio where respectively 44 and 25 counties project’s are now eligible for a bonus credit. The states of Maryland (6), Florida (3), Wisconsin (1). California (1) and Michigan (1) now have additional counties eligible for the bonus. As a result the queues most impacted by this are Xcel Minnesota, PJM, DTE Energy Private Generation, MISO, PG&E, Duke Energy Florida, CAISO. New projects by sector (click through to see projects) are as follows; Solar – 841 Community Solar – 317 Solar | Storage – 236 Storage – 32 Onshore Wind – 25

There are 147 projects greater than 20 MW (22.24 GW capacity) of which NPM has classified 66 as being at an advanced stage. Notable developers of these projects include Invenergy (13), Open Road (6), National Grid (5), Enel (3), RWE (3), Avangrid (2), Candela (2), Leeward (2), NextEra (2), Savion (2)

There are also 1,333 projects less than 20 MW (1.52 GW) of which NPM has classified 159 as being at an advanced stage. Notable developers of these projects include US Solar (14), Invenergy (13), New Energy Equity (10), Open Road (6), Geronimo Power (5), Nexamp (4), Leeward (3). Note that in some instances projects appear in the queue as having a blank MW value.

NPM plans to incorporate the IRS 2026 Energy Communities into the Interconnection Queue > Key Data Points filter in the coming weeks. Summary

• 698 continue as energy communities from 2025
• 81 new energy communities
• 154 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