Marcus Webb works nights stocking shelves at a DeKalb County warehouse. He rents a two-bedroom apartment outside town and has never owned a roof, so rooftop solar always felt like someone else’s upgrade. This month, a DeKalb community solar credit started showing up on his ComEd bill every month. He never touched a wrench, a permit, or a single solar panel himself.
That credit comes from a brand-new solar farm. ComEd and SunVest Solar switched it on this week at DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport. The project is built to help renters like Marcus save money without owning anything at all.
What Just Got Switched On
Crews installed about 13,000 solar panels across 47 acres of airport land in DeKalb, Illinois. The array puts out nearly 8 megawatts of direct current power. Officials flipped the switch on October 2, 2026. ComEd called it the first community solar project ever built on a municipal airport. The land sat mostly empty before. Now it feeds clean power straight into the local grid.
What DeKalb Community Solar Pays You Every Year
Here is the part that matters for your wallet. About 1,100 households signed up for bill credits from this one farm. SunVest reserved 60 percent of the capacity for low- and moderate-income households. The average subscriber saves more than $300 a year. Stretch that across the 35-year life of the project, and one household’s savings can add up to nearly $11,000.
Renters, people without a usable roof, and small business owners can all subscribe. Nobody has to install anything or pay upfront. The credit simply lands on the electric bill every month.
| What the farm delivers each year | Amount |
|---|---|
| Average household savings | $200 to $300+ |
| Households subscribed | 1,100 |
| Share reserved for low/moderate income homes | 60% |
| Land rent paid to the airport | $91,000/year |
| Property taxes paid to DeKalb County | $36,000/year |
“This project provides meaningful benefits to Northern Illinois communities,” said SunVest CEO Bram Walters, pointing to savings for lower-income residents and new local revenue.
Why an Airport Turned Out to Be the Right Spot
Airports sit on land nobody else wants to build on near runways. That makes them good candidates for solar. DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport now collects $91,000 a year in land rent. DeKalb County collects $36,000 a year in property taxes, and state law sends most of that money straight to local schools.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster said the project “will help local families and small businesses save on their electricity bills” while opening up solar access to people who were shut out before. That is the real story here. A piece of unused airport land now funds classrooms and knocks dollars off power bills at the same time.
This fits a bigger pattern. ComEd and SunVest have energized several other community solar sites in northern Illinois this year too, and combined capacity across those projects has already passed a dozen megawatts. If you rent your home, EnergySage has a good rundown on how community solar works for renters anywhere in the country, not just Illinois. And if saving money through solar without owning the hardware sounds familiar, it should. California renters are already seeing similar bill cuts from a different kind of solar access program, and Virginia just launched its own version built around the same idea.
Illinois residents can check their eligibility through Illinois Shines, the state’s official community solar marketplace. If you live outside Illinois, ask your utility one simple question this week: does it offer a community solar subscription? For Marcus, that one question turned into real money back every single month.