55 ILCS 5/5-12020: Wind and Solar Setbacks and Sound Limits

Illinois Compiled Statutes 55 ILCS 5/5-12020 sets the statewide rules for where and how commercial wind and solar energy facilities can be built in Illinois counties. It caps setback distances, sound levels, shadow flicker, permit fees, and decommissioning demands, and it tells counties they can match those standards but cannot make them stricter. If you own land near a proposed project, are considering leasing your own land to a developer, or are buying rural property in Illinois, this is the law that controls what your county can and cannot do.

The statute applies to two project types: commercial wind energy facilities with a total nameplate capacity of 500 kilowatts or more, and commercial solar energy facilities as defined in the Property Tax Code. Utility-scale solar projects eligible for certain Illinois Power Agency procurement events are handled separately and fall outside this framework.¹

What Counties Can and Cannot Do

A county board can adopt siting standards for commercial wind and solar projects whether or not the county has a formal zoning commission. The standards cannot exceed the thresholds written into the statute. Counties are free to be more permissive; they are not free to be stricter.²

For wind projects, county authority reaches unincorporated areas outside a municipality’s zoning jurisdiction and outside the 1.5-mile buffer around that jurisdiction. Two hard prohibitions apply everywhere: a county cannot zone wind or solar out of any district zoned for agricultural or industrial use, permanently or temporarily, and it cannot set infrastructure standards (access roads, substations, and the like) that would effectively prevent projects from being built.²

Participating vs. Nonparticipating Property

Almost every protection in the statute turns on one question: is a given piece of land participating or nonparticipating?

Participating property is land whose owner has signed a written agreement giving the facility owner an easement, lease, option, or license to build turbines, arrays, or supporting infrastructure. Land the facility owner already owns for that purpose counts too. A participating residence is a home on participating land.¹

Nonparticipating property is everything else. A nonparticipating residence is a home on nonparticipating land occupied as of the date the developer files its permit application. The statute defines “occupied community building” to include schools, places of worship, day care facilities, public libraries, and community centers occupied on the application filing date. These structures receive the strongest setback and flicker protections.³

Wind Turbine Setbacks

Setback distances for wind towers are measured from the center of the turbine base, and most are expressed as a multiple of the maximum blade tip height. A taller turbine sits farther away. For a 600-foot tip height, a 2.1-times multiplier works out to 1,260 feet.¹

Nonparticipating residences and occupied community buildings: 2.1 times maximum blade tip height, measured to the nearest point on the outside wall.
Participating residences: 1.1 times maximum blade tip height, measured to the nearest point on the outside wall.
Nonparticipating property lines: 1.1 times maximum blade tip height, measured to the nearest point on the property line.
Participating property lines: no setback required.
Public road rights-of-way: 1.1 times maximum blade tip height, measured to the center of the right-of-way.
Overhead transmission and distribution lines (not individual service lines): 1.1 times maximum blade tip height, measured to the nearest edge of the easement or right-of-way.
Fish and wildlife areas and Illinois Nature Preserve Commission lands: 2.1 times maximum blade tip height, measured to the nearest property line.

Individual service lines running to houses or outbuildings have no required setback. Owners of affected nonparticipating property can waive these setbacks in writing.¹

Solar Setbacks and Physical Standards

Solar setbacks use fixed distances measured from the nearest above-ground component of the facility, excluding fencing.³

Nonparticipating dwellings and occupied community buildings: 150 feet from the nearest point on the outside wall.
Nonparticipating property lines: 50 feet to the nearest point on the property line.
Public road rights-of-way: 50 feet from the nearest edge of the right-of-way.
Participating property lines: no setback required.

Perimeter fencing must be at least 6 feet tall and no taller than 25 feet. Solar panels cannot exceed 20 feet above ground at full tilt. Counties can require vegetative screening between arrays and nonparticipating residences, but they cannot mandate earthen berms, and screening cannot exceed 5 feet tall at the time of installation.³

Sound Limits and the Waiver That Follows the Land

Counties cannot impose sound limits stricter than the standards the Illinois Pollution Control Board sets under 35 Illinois Administrative Code Parts 900, 901, and 910. The statute writes no decibel numbers of its own; it defers to those regulations.¹

Property owners, participating or nonparticipating, can waive enforcement of the Pollution Control Board sound rules. The waiver must comply with Section 25 of the Illinois Environmental Protection Act and be recorded with the county recorder’s office. Once recorded, it binds all current and future owners, residents, tenants, and visitors to that property. If you buy land where a previous owner signed a sound waiver, you inherit it. Check the recorder’s index before you close.¹

Shadow Flicker Cap

Wind turbines cast a moving shadow as blades rotate between the sun and nearby structures. The statute caps that flicker at 30 hours per year for any occupied community building or nonparticipating residence, based on industry-standard computer modeling of planned operating conditions. Participating residences get no equivalent cap.¹

The Hearing and Decision Timeline

Before granting a siting approval or special use permit, the county board or its zoning board of appeals must hold at least one public hearing under the Open Meetings Act. The hearing must conclude within 60 days after the developer files the application. The county must issue its decision within 30 days after the hearing closes. Notice must be published in a local newspaper of general circulation.¹

Interested parties may present evidence and cross-examine witnesses, subject to reasonable time limits, and general public comment is required. If the application complies with the statute, the county zoning ordinance, and applicable state and federal regulations, it must be approved.²

Fee Caps

The statute sets a two-tier fee ceiling per megawatt of nameplate capacity.¹

Siting approval or special use permit fee: up to $5,000 per megawatt, capped at $125,000. Fees within this range are presumptively reasonable.
Building permit fee: up to $5,000 per megawatt, capped at $75,000. A single building permit covers the entire facility, supporting infrastructure included.

Counties can also seek reimbursement for reasonable processing expenses above the fee cap, but they must tie any additional charge to actual costs.

Farmland, Drainage, and Decommissioning

Before the required public hearing takes place, the facility owner must sign an agricultural impact mitigation agreement with the Illinois Department of Agriculture. That agreement governs how the project interacts with working farmland through construction, operation, and removal.¹

The developer must also file a farmland drainage plan with the county and any affected drainage districts, detailing how surface and subsurface drainage will be restored during and after construction. The facility owner must repair or pay for repairs to any subsurface drainage damage caused by construction, following the mitigation agreement’s procedures, and must compensate landowners for crop losses or other agricultural damage tied to drainage problems. Surface drainage must be restored as soon as reasonably practicable.¹

Counties can set decommissioning standards, but those standards cannot be stricter than the terms in the Department of Agriculture’s template agricultural impact mitigation agreements (wind template 81818 and solar version 8.19.19, both as in effect on December 31, 2022). Any required decommissioning payment must align with the financial assurance those templates spell out.¹

Property Values and Road Use

A county cannot make its approval conditional on a property value guarantee, and it cannot require the developer to fund a neighboring-property devaluation escrow account.¹

Facilities must enter road use agreements with local road districts. Those agreements can only require the developer to cover costs specifically caused by the construction project. Road districts cannot add permit fees or other charges unless the amount matches actual expenses for negotiating, building, or implementing the agreement.¹

What This Means If You Live Nearby

If a project is proposed near land you own and you have not signed a participation agreement, you have setback protection scaled to turbine height or the 150-foot solar residence standard, a 30-hour annual shadow flicker cap for wind, sound protection tied to Pollution Control Board limits, and the right to present evidence and cross-examine witnesses at the public hearing. You do not have the ability to push your county into stricter setbacks, stricter sound rules, larger decommissioning bonds, or a property value guarantee. The county cannot give you those things even if it wants to.

If you are thinking about signing a participation agreement, understand the trade. Lease income comes with reduced setbacks around your own home and property line, no flicker cap on your residence, and, if you sign a sound waiver, a permanent record on your title that binds every future owner. If you are buying rural property anywhere a wind or solar project could be built, pull the recorder’s index for sound waivers and any recorded easements or options before you close.

1
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 55 ILCS 5-12020 – Commercial Wind Energy Facilities and Commercial Solar Energy Facilities
2
Illinois General Assembly. Public Act 102-1123
3
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 55 ILCS 5-12020 – Commercial Wind Energy Facilities and Commercial Solar Energy Facilities