Posts Tagged ‘Compliance’

MA DOER Announces Preliminary 2017 Compliance Obligation

Posted July 25th, 2016 by SRECTrade.

Friday, July 22, 2016, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) announced the preliminary 2017 Solar Carve-out (SREC-I) and Solar Carve-out II (SREC-II) Compliance Obligations and Minimum Standards. Customarily, the DOER estimates these values prior to administering the Solar Credit Clearinghouse Auction each year. The final 2017 Minimum Standards will be announced on or before August 30th, after both the SREC-I and SREC-II Auctions have concluded.

Solar Carve-out (SREC-I)

Notably, the DOER projects that the final 2017 Compliance Obligation for the SREC-I program will be approximately 783,181 MWhs and that the Minimum Standard will be approximately 1.6313%. These values will be increased to 785,077 MWhs and 1.6352%, respectively, if the SREC-I auction does not fully clear in the first two rounds. The 2017 Minimum Standard for load under contracts signed before June 28, 2013 will be 0.9861%.

The DOER published a resource outlining its calculation of the preliminary SREC-I Minimum Standard.

Preliminary 2017 Compliance Obligation SREC-I Table

Solar Carve-out II (SREC-II)

Regarding the SREC-II Program, the DOER established a baseline Compliance Obligation and Minimum Standard that would have applied to Retail Electricity Suppliers had the RPS Class I Emergency Regulation not been filed on April 8, 2016; these suppliers are exempt from any additional obligations resulting from the expansion of the SREC-II Program Capacity Cap.

To calculate this baseline Minimum Standard, the DOER first determined the expected MWh/year that would have resulted had the SREC-II Program Capacity Cap remained 947 MW by:

  1. Identifying the percentage shares of MW currently qualified under each SREC-II Market Sector;
  2. Multiplying these percentages by the original 947 MW SREC-II Program Capacity Cap;
  3. Multiplying these totals by (1) their respective SREC Factors, (2) a 13.51% expected capacity factor, and (3) 8,760 hours/year.

The DOER then summed these values and combined the auction volume and banked SREC-II volume from the 2015 Compliance Filings, resulting in a baseline Compliance Obligation of 1,102,311 MWhs and a Minimum Standard of 2.2960%. These values will be increased to 1,169,357 MWhs and 2.4357%, respectively, if the SREC-II auction does not fully clear in the first two rounds.

Preliminary 2017 Compliance Obligation SREC-II Table 2

Additionally, the DOER calculated the preliminary 2017 SREC-II Compliance Obligation and Minimum Standard for load under contracts signed after May 8, 2016 – 1,496,188 MWhs and 3.1164%, respectively. These values will be increased to 1,563,234 MWhs and 3.2561% if the SREC-II auction does not fully clear in the first two rounds.

Preliminary 2017 Compliance Obligation SREC-II Table

The DOER also published a resource outlining its calculation of the preliminary SREC-II Minimum Standard.

Solar Credit Clearinghouse Auctions

The first rounds of the SREC-I and SREC-II Solar Credit Clearinghouse Auctions are scheduled for July 29, 2016. A second and third round will be held as needed the following week should these auctions not fully clear.

The DOER has also provided slight updates to the volumes of SRECs available in the Auctions: 1,896 in SREC-I and 67,046 in SREC-II.

SRECTrade will continue to monitor the proceedings of the Solar Credit Clearinghouse Auctions and will report the outcomes of the Auctions once the results become readily available.

MA DOER Announces 2013 SREC Requirement

Posted August 29th, 2012 by SRECTrade.

Today, the MA DOER announced the 2013 compliance year (January 1 – December 31, 2013) Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) requirement. Massachusetts’ SREC requirement is set each year by a formula that takes into consideration the current year SREC obligation plus the projected SREC generation for the current year less the SRECs generated in prior years multiplied by 1.3. Additional adjustments are then made for prior year’s Alternative Compliance Payment (ACP) volume, banked SREC volume, and DOER Credit Clearinghouse auction volume. The detailed formula for 2013 is as follows:

Total Compliance Obligation 2013 = Total Compliance Obligation 2012 + [Total SRECs Generated (projected) 2012 – SRECs Generated (actual) 2011] x 1.3 – ACP Volume 2011 + Banked Volume 2011 + Auction Volume 2011

MA2013 Compliance Obligation

The MA2013 SREC requirement has been set at 135,495 SRECs. This figure does not take into consideration exempt load based on the TransCanada settlement reached during the first year of the MA SREC market. In the calculation, the DOER provided the effective reduction in SREC Demand for 2013 at 4,784. This means that, under the announced 2013 requirement, the actual number of SRECs needed to be purchased under the 2013 obligation will be equal to 135,495 less 4,784; 130,711 SRECs.

The 2013 Requirement Might Increase

In coordination with its announcement, the DOER also stated its intention to begin a rulemaking process to address the following:

1) Formally insert the 10 Year Solar ACP schedule into regulation;

2) Adjust the formula above to remove the term that subtracts “ACP Volume” from prior years.

The DOER stated its intention to adjust the formula would retroactively apply to the 2013 SREC requirement. The removal of this term from the formula would increase the SREC requirement from 135,495 to 189,297 SRECs required in 2013. Taking into consideration the effective reduction of 4,784, that would put the net 2013 requirement at 184,513.

The table below demonstrates the current formula requirement vs. the proposed formula requirement:

The DOER noted their plans to begin the rulemaking process in September 2012. The DOER welcomes any comments on the announcement prior to beginning the process. Comments can be sent to DOER.SREC@state.ma.us by 5:00pm on September 14th.