Posts Tagged ‘Washington DC Solar Changes’

DC SREC Market Amendment – Update

Posted June 15th, 2011 by SRECTrade.

On June 7, 2011, the Council of the District of Columbia read and reviewed the latest draft of Bill 19-10, also known as the Distributed Generation Amendment Act of 2011.  For the details of the pending amendment please click here. The amendment received a substantial support from the local legislators as well as the DC solar community. The final vote after the first reading was 14-0, unanimously in favor of putting the amendment into effect.

As it currently stands, below are the key points of the amendment under consideration:

– Solar thermal system eligibility to participate in the SREC market. For more info see this post.

– Implementation of new solar capacity requirements and a new solar alternative compliance payment (SACP) schedule:

Year Current RPS Solar Requirement Proposed RPS Solar Requirement Jan-11 Proposed RPS Solar Requirement June-11 Current SACP Proposed SACP June-11
2011 0.04% 0.25% 0.40% $500 $500
2012 0.07% 0.50% 0.50% $500 $500
2013 0.10% 0.75% 0.50% $500 $500
2014 0.13% 1.00% 0.60% $500 $500
2015 0.17% 1.25% 0.70% $500 $500
2016 0.21% 1.50% 0.825% $500 $500
2017 0.25% 1.75% 0.98% $500 $350
2018 0.30% 2.00% 1.15% $500 $300
2019 0.35% 2.25% 1.35% $500 $200
2020 0.40% 2.50% 1.58% $500 $200
2021 1.85% $150
2022 2.175% $150
2023 2.50% $50

The amendment puts it place a system size cap, stating that all solar requirements be met by acquiring SRECs from systems no larger than 5 MW. Additionally, the amendment requires systems to be sited within the District. For systems located outside of the District, the amendment plans to grandfather systems smaller than 5 MW in capacity that were registered as a renewable resource with the District prior to January 31, 2011.

As mentioned in our previous blog post on this potential change to the District’s existing RPS law, this bill will take very important, concrete steps to addressing the current oversupply in the DC market.

It is still unclear how the grandfather date of 1/31/2011 will affect facilities outside the district that have been registered by the DC Public Services Commission and issued SRECs since then.

As the District is still operating under the current RPS law, out-of-state systems are still eligible to be certified for SREC generation, but it is unknown if the registration will hold value considering the implications of the amendment. The DC Council website does not currently indicate the next date for further consideration, but SRECTrade will continue to provide additional information as it becomes available.

Could change be coming to Washington DC’s SREC market?

Posted February 9th, 2011 by SRECTrade.

As you can see from our monthly update on the capacity registered in the SREC states, the DC market has requirements of no more than 8 MW of installations over the next two years. Today, there are over 27 MW currently generating SRECs that are eligible for the DC SREC market. Only 1.1 MW of the 27 MW are actually located within the District. This oversupply and weight towards foreign facilities is likely what prompted the potential legislative changes to the DC SREC market that we highlighted earlier.

This Bill is still in the early stages of the legislative process and it is unknown how long it would be before it is passed. However, it will take several months, at a minimum, before it would go into effect. At this point, it has been referred to the Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs, chaired by Councilmember Yvette Alexander who will establish the timing of hearings and markups of legislation.

After the hearing, it will likely go through an iterative process that will take several weeks before it is ready for a vote and another 2-4 weeks before a 2nd and final vote to enact the Bill before it is sent to the Mayor to sign. Once signed by the Mayor, the District must then send it to Congress for a lengthy review period.

The Bill seems to have enough support within the Council to have a good chance of being passed. Which then begs the question, how will they approach the grandfathering of out-of-state facilities that are already registered in DC. There are two important details here. First is the cutoff date. The initial date listed on the proposed Bill was January 31, 2011, however it is likely that if it takes several months to a year to enact the law, the actual cutoff date will be adjusted accordingly. The second detail is what defines “registered”. Would it mean any facility that was built prior to the cutoff date? Or is it any facility that has submitted an application to DC prior to the cutoff date? Or is it any facility that is approved prior to the cutoff date? The problem with the third approach is that the date an application is submitted is within the control of the solar owner, but the date that it is actually certified is not. We think it would be consistent with existing policies that DC would interpret “registered” as the date by which an application is submitted to DC.

SRECTrade will continue to follow the progress of this legislation. Any stakeholders interested in submitting testimony can do so by contacting the office of Councilmember Alexander.

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