Archive for the ‘California’ Category

California Sues Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Posted July 22nd, 2010 by SRECTrade.

Last week, the state of California filed a lawsuit against mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. California’s Attorney General, Jerry Brown, hopes the legal action will realign the momentum of the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing program. Earlier this month the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) instructed the mortgage lenders to avoid homes or tighten lending standards in geographies with PACE financing in place.

The lawsuit filed claims that the FHFA violates California law, which approved the PACE programs, and “severely hampers California’s efforts to assist thousands of California homeowners to reduce their energy and water use, help drive the state’s green economy, and create significant numbers of skilled, stable and well-paying jobs.”

Additionally, the lawsuit states, “the actions of these government-sponsored, shareholder-owned private corporations have placed California’s PACE programs – and the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal stimulus money supporting them – at immediate risk while benefiting their own pecuniary interests.”

The FHFA’s response focused on the additional credit risks PACE programs could impose in the event of a mortgage default. The PACE financing structure puts the clean energy loans in a position ahead of the home mortgage. If a property were to go through a foreclosure process, the PACE loan would be paid off prior to the home mortgage.

In addition to the California lawsuit, representatives from the California Public Utilities Commission and the U.S. House of Representatives took action against the FHFA’s decision. Click here to see the full blog post from the New York Times.

Importing and Exporting SRECs across Registries

Posted July 21st, 2010 by SRECTrade.

With the launch of the North Carolina Renewable Energy Tracking System (NC-RETS), North Carolina is paving the way for what could be the future for SREC markets. For the first time, an SREC created in one region’s registry will be transferable to a buyer in another region’s registry. This cooperation amongst registries could be the first step towards a permeable nationwide SREC market.

North Carolina is currently working with other renewable energy certificate tracking systems to approve a process for importing and exporting SRECs. The approval of exporting SRECs from other tracking systems and importing them into NC-RETS would allow solar system owners located in states without viable SREC markets to sell into the North Carolina SREC market. This is all possible because almost all of the registries were built with similar technology developed by APX.  More information on all of the registries can be found here: APX Primer on REC Registries.

NC-RETS is working with the parties responsible for maintaining the other regional registries to develop the importing and exporting process.  Here is a list of those registries and an update on the status of importing and exporting:

NARR: The North American Renewables Registry (NARR) was developed by APX to serve the needs of states and regions that have not implemented a REC tracking system.  This covers most of the Southeastern U.S., Alaska and Hawaii.  NARR has already established importing/exporting procedures with NC-RETS.

MRETS: The Midwest Renewable Energy Tracking System (M-RETS), the registry that tracks the generation of SRECs in 8 Midwest U.S. states and the Canadian province of Manitoba, has approved the exportation of SRECs and is implementing the necessary software upgrades.

GATS: Generation Attribute Tracking System covers the Mid-Atlantic states and currently tracks the majority of SREC volume due to member states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.  GATS is expected to allow importing/exporting soon.

WREGIS: The Western Renewable Energy Generation Information System (WREGIS), the registry that tracks the generation of SRECs in 14 Western U.S. states, Baja California, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, is capable of managing exports and is in the process of making a policy decision to allow the system to export SRECs.

ERCOT: Texas, the sixth state to adopt an RPS in 1999, was the first to implement a procedure for meeting the RPS.  The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) was the first registry of its kind.  Unfortunately, it does not currently have the capability to export SRECs and it may require legislative approval to make the necessary changes to the system’s software. However, NC-RETS and APX are working with ERCOT to come up with a solution.

California TREC Market Held Up

Posted June 29th, 2010 by SRECTrade.

On May 6, 2010, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) released its decision to stay the prior decision authorizing the use of tradable renewable energy certificates (TRECs) for compliance with the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) program. This decision came after the April 23, 2010 workshop presentations, in which California’s IOUs discussed the valuation components and calculation of REC pricing.

The decision will be stayed pending resolutions of two petitions 1) the joint petition filed by Southern California Edison Company, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and San Diego Gas & Electric Company (the utility petition) and 2) the petition filed by the Independent Energy Producers Association (IEP).

As outlined in the CPUC’s decision, the petitions filed look to address the following points:

The utility petition seeks to:

  • Revise the criteria for what transactions are bundled and what can be unbundled for TREC trading
  • Apply the criteria only to contracts submitted for approval after the effective date of the decision
  • Eliminate the temporary limit on TRECs for compliance with the RPS by the large utilities
  • Expand the rules for “earmarking” TREC contracts to address current short-fall with future generation

The IEP petition seeks to:

  • Revise the criteria for bundled and unbundled transactions with revisions different from the utility’s petition
  • Expand the review of the least-cost best-fit methodology for RPS bid evaluation and set a time for its completion

In addition to the subjects the petitions seek to address, the decision also included the concurrences and dissents of the CPUCs commissioners. The full document can be viewed here.

SRECTrade will continue to watch the CPUC’s decision making process and provide updates as they become available.  We will maintain everything we know about it on our California SREC page.


California SRECs (TRECs) coming soon!

Posted March 12th, 2010 by SRECTrade.

The California TREC market is here!

Yesterday California passed legislation to allow for a Tradable Renewable Energy Credit (TREC) market. This essentially means that utilities in California can now buy SRECs unbundled from the electricity. Prior to this ruling, any SRECs used to comply with the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard had to be purchased with the electricity itself, i.e. the SRECs had to be bundled with the electricity and sold to the utility together.  The reason behind this ruling is that the utilities are not able to meet the growing requirement from projects sited within their territories and this new rule allows them to get credit for renewable energy produced elsewhere by purchasing the SRECs (or TRECs as the state calls them) from generators outside their territories.  The Alternative Compliance Payment (ACP) will start at $50, creating a cap, but that cap and other restrictions around the use of RECs is planned to be lifted after 2011 after the state has had time to get more comfortable with the program.  In the early stages, this means that TREC values will be significantly lower than values in other states where the Solar ACP (SACP) is anywhere from $250-$700. Currently TRECs include all forms of Renewable Energy, however, it is unclear if there will be a market in the future that places a distinction on Solar RECs, SRECs in the California market place. With this legislation, SRECs carry the same value as any other RECs.

We see this being an important opportunity for generators outside California who are now able to help the state meet its renewable energy goals by purchasing RECs. The RECs must be registered in WREGIS in order to be eligible.  SRECTrade will have more information regarding the online market place for California TRECs soon.