Archive for October, 2020

Illinois ABP Approved Vendor Designee Registration

Posted October 28th, 2020 by SRECTrade.

Pursuant to Section 6.9.1 of the Revised Long-Term Plan, Illinois Adjustable Block Program (ABP) Approved Vendor Designees are now required to register in a new portal with the Approved Vendors with which they are partnered. This new requirement was established to help increase transparency for consumers, since they will now be able to verify the legitimacy and affiliations of an entity contacting them by reviewing the public-facing Designee database on both the ABP and Illinois Shines websites.

On Monday, October 26th, the Designee Registration Portal opened. On Friday, October 23rd, the ABP Administrator hosted a webinar to review the portal and onboarding process. SRECTrade encourages all stakeholders to review this informative resource regarding the process. For access to the presentation slides, please click HERE. To view a recording of the webinar, please click HERE.

Importantly, new Designees must register in the portal prior to working with any Approved Vendor. Existing Designees must register by Thursday, December 10, 2020 to remain in compliance with ABP requirements (45 calendar days from the October 26, 2020 release of the Designee Registration functionality). Once registered, Designees should indicate all applicable roles from the following list in the portal:

  • Disclosure Form Designee – An entity that is permitted to generate Disclosure Forms on behalf of an Approved Vendor.
  • Community Solar Subscriber Agent Designee – An entity that is permitted to manage the community solar subscription information for an Approved Vendor’s community solar projects.
  • Marketing or Sales Designee – An entity that is designated to act as a marketing agent and/or customer acquisition agent on behalf of an Approved Vendor or Designee. This includes, among others, entities that engage in solicitations through any channel (in-person, telephone, etc.), as well as entities that perform online lead generation services.
  • Installer Designee – An entity that has been designated to install systems on behalf of an Approved Vendor or Designee.

October 28, 2020 Edit: To view FAQs following the October 23rd webinar and the ABP Administrator’s responses, please click HERE.

Current and interested SRECTrade Designees can email installers@srectrade.com with questions about this new requirement and onboarding process.

Virginia SREC Market Update

Posted October 16th, 2020 by SRECTrade.

On April 12, 2020, Governor Ralph Northam signed the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). This Act was passed as House Bill 1526 and Senate Bill 851. Dominion and Appalachian Power Company (APCo) now have a mandatory Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) in their service territories. The goals of the VCEA are to establish renewable portfolio and energy efficiency standards, advance offshore wind, and advance solar and distributed generation.

Dominion and APCo may use RECs from any renewable energy facility within Virginia or the PJM territory from the years 2021-2024. Beginning in 2025, 75% of all RECs used by Dominion must come from RPS resources within Virginia. All RECs are eligible to be sold for 5 years. Dominion must be 100% carbon-free by 2045 and APCo must be 100% carbon-free by 2050.

An additional component of the VCEA is that 1% of Dominion’s RPS compliance obligation must come from in-state distributed generation solar resources (DG) smaller than 3 MW in nameplate capacity. This requirement will represent approximately 90 MW in 2021 and increase to approximately 250 MW by 2030, thus supporting the development of about 160 MW of DG solar over the next nine years. At this point in the RPS’s development, it is not clear if the carve-out will result in an openly traded SREC market or if a central procurement program will be established.

Regarding the market’s potential SREC value, the solar alternative compliance penalty (SACP) has been set at $75 in 2021 for the DG solar carve-out portion of the market and will increase by 1% annually thereafter. The SACP is the value the utilities must pay per MWh if the appropriate number of RECs are not purchased, thus acting as a soft price ceiling for the market. With an SACP of $75, SRECs in Virginia have the potential to trade at a significant premium to the Pennsylvania Tier I REC market, which is currently the only REC market that Virginia-sited solar systems can sell into. This increase in value should spur additional development and make distributed generation solar more affordable in Virginia.

It is anticipated that the certification process for solar systems will begin in 2021, but a clear process has not been established at this point. We will continue to monitor the RPS’s implementation and update our partners and stakeholders accordingly.   

New Jersey TREC Program – Webinar

Posted October 1st, 2020 by SRECTrade.

Earlier today, SRECTrade hosted a webinar for New Jersey Transition Incentive (TI) Program stakeholders. The webinar presented an overview of the TI Program, which features fixed-price, factorized Transition Renewable Energy Credits (TRECs), and also outlined SRECTrade’s services and onboarding process.

For access to the presentation slides, please click HERE. To view a recording of the webinar, please click the image below.