Archive for May, 2019

Ohio House Advances Nuclear Subsidy Bill that Would Eliminate the State’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)

Posted May 31st, 2019 by SRECTrade.
The Davis-Basse Nuclear Power Station will be subsidized under Ohio House Bill 6. Source: News-Herald

On Wednesday, May 29th, the Ohio House of Representatives passed House Bill 6 (HB 6) 53-43 that would repeal the state’s renewable energy mandate and replace it with a nuclear subsidy program under the moniker “Clean Air Program”. This nuclear subsidy program would help bailout two ailing nuclear power plants in Ohio owned by bankrupt utility FirstEnergy Solutions by adding a $1 surcharge on customers’ monthly utility bills. The program would also extend a surcharge of $2.50 per month through 2030 to support ailing coal plants across the state.

The bill would eliminate the renewable portfolio standard (RPS) in Ohio, a key component to maintaining the financial viability of renewables compared with other fossil-fuel based electricity generation resources. As such, nearly all renewable assets generating OH-certified renewable energy credit (REC) or solar renewable energy credit (SREC) products would cease to generate these credits as of the effective date of the bill. Additionally, the bill would do away with the nearly $200 million program to fund energy efficiency and demand response initiatives, which saved Ohio customers over $5 billion from 2009 to 2017, according to the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance.

The bill now moves on to the Ohio Senate. While state senators have not publicly voiced their support of the bill, outspoken support from Governor Mike DeWine and the Republican majority in the senate gives the bill momentum to pass.

SRECTrade strongly urges constituents and market stakeholders to reach out to members of the Ohio State Senate and voice their concern with this Bill. The Senate directory can be found here. SRECTrade will continue monitoring these policy proceedings closely and provide updates.

Maryland Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA) Passes into Law

Posted May 28th, 2019 by SRECTrade.

On Friday, May 22nd, Governor Larry Hogan announced that he would let the Maryland Clean Energy Jobs Act (SB-516) pass without his signature. The Governor’s decision to let the bill pass puts Maryland at the forefront of a growing list of states with aggressive renewable targets. This legislation requires 50% of Maryland’s energy to come from renewable sources and 14.5% from in-state solar, by 2030. In addition to the 2030 targets, the bill mandates that the state conduct research on strategies to reach 100% renewable energy sources by 2040, among other initiatives.

The Governor supplemented his decision to let the bill pass unsigned with a letter to Maryland Senate President, Thomas V. Miller, expressing his concerns with the bill and affirming his promise to continue pushing for a cleaner portfolio of energy resources in Maryland. SRECTrade will conduct further analysis on the impacts of this legislation and publish a comprehensive SREC market analysis in the coming weeks.

California LCFS Market Sees First Quarterly Credit Surplus Since Q4 2017

Posted May 6th, 2019 by SRECTrade.

On April 30th, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) released Q4 2018 data on the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) market in California. Notably, the market saw an LCFS credit surplus of approximately 67k credits, snapping a deficit streak of four straight quarters. Approximately 3.27 million metric tons (MT) of credits were generated in Q4 2018 compared to 3.20 million MT of deficits in the same time frame. This credit surplus can be largely attributed to the uptick in clean diesel substitutes, namely renewable diesel and bio-diesel, which from a volumetric perspective, increased 37.2% and 14.8%, respectively, from Q3 to Q4 2018.

The following chart shows credit production changes for the highest credit-producing fuels in the LCFS market:

Source: CARB

With an average quarter-over-quarter credit increase rate of 9.11% since Q1 2011, the Q4 2018 increase of 16.89% from Q3 2018 is well above the running average. However, when factoring out the increases in renewable diesel and bio-diesel credit generation, overall credit generation only increased 1.45% from Q3 to Q4 2018. As such, monitoring the influx of renewable diesel and bio-diesel in the marketplace will be integral to projecting credit growth over the next few quarters.

The following chart shows deficit changes for the two baseline deficit-producing fuels in the LCFS market:

Source: CARB

While CARBOB and diesel fuels both saw a volumetric and deficit-production decline in Q4 2018, the influx of renewable diesel into the market produced 160k deficits in Q4 2018. This outpaced the deficit decrease in traditional deficit-producing fuels, increasing the overall deficit count by 2.03% from Q3 2018.

The following chart released by CARB illustrates the overall LCFS market trends:

Source: CARB

With a step down in the Carbon Intensity (CI) Compliance Standard in 2019, we will likely see an uptick in deficit production beginning in Q1 2019, barring any major changes in fuel production. The influx of renewable diesel will continue to be a determining market force from both a credit and deficit perspective.

With regards to pricing, in recent weeks, we have seen pricing come off its ~$200 peak after CARB proposed a hard $200 price cap (in 2016 $ indexed for inflation) on the program in a workshop on April 5th. As of recent, CA LCFS spot market pricing has ranged between $180 and $185/credit.

SRECTrade offers LCFS credit management and brokerage services to electric vehicle (EV) fleet operators, OEMs, EV charging station owners, and other asset owners. We help our clients navigate through the entire LCFS process including asset registration, ongoing reporting requirements, transacting, settlement, and remittance of funds. Our domain expertise in environmental commodity markets allows us to provide our clients with industry leading regulatory and market knowledge. Please reach out to cleanfuels@srectrade.com for more information.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf Announces Support For AEPS Expansion

Posted May 3rd, 2019 by SRECTrade.

On Monday, April 29th, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf declared his support for Senate Bill 600 (SB 600). In conjunction, Gov. Wolf released the fourth iteration of the state’s Climate Action Plan, providing recommendations for how the state can mitigate climate change, and also announced that Pennsylvania joined the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of 24 states committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Initially introduced in the Pennsylvania General Assembly on April 10th, SB 600 was referred to the Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure Committee on April 29th. The bill updates the state’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards (AEPS) for the first time since the AEPS was established in 2004, calling for four primary changes:

  1. Expand the AEPS Tier I requirement from 8% by 2021 to 30% by 2030
  2. Expand the AEPS solar carve-out from 0.5% by 2021 to 10% by 2030, including 7.5% for grid-supply solar and 2.5% for distributed generation (DG) solar
  3. Minimize rate increases for electricity customers by introducing fixed alternative compliance payment (ACP) schedules and a 15-year SREC eligibility term for solar facilities (beginning on June 1, 2021)
  4. Direct the PA Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to explore a program for renewable energy storage
Table 1.
Table 2.
Table 3.

SB 600’s introduction of solar carve-out compliance categories between “customer-generators” and “non-customer-generators” marks a first for the state. Tables 2 and 3 above display the proposed solar carve-out requirements and solar alternative compliance payment (SACP) schedules between the two respective categories. The bill defines customer-generators as solar facilities that were certified on or before May 31, 2021 and also appears to define them as “behind-the-meter” facilities. Conversely, it appears that non-customer-generators are defined as grid-supply facilities, although the exact definitions of both categories may be subject to change.