Posts Tagged ‘Massachusetts SREC aggregation’

MA DOER Seeks to Set Fixed SACP Schedule

Posted August 3rd, 2011 by SRECTrade.

On August 2, 2011, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) proposed an amendment to the Solar Alternative Compliance Payment (SACP) schedule for the MA SREC program. Feedback from market participants including project developers, financing parties, and retail electricity suppliers indicated the current SACP structure creates uncertainty around future SREC valuation. Under the existing structure, the DOER has the ability to reduce the SACP on a yearly basis by up to 10% of the current value. The amended schedule seeks to provide more certainty for expected future prices while assisting project financing and negotiations for long-term SREC contracts.

The proposal establishes a 10-year schedule for the SACP that would maintain the current rate of $550/SREC through compliance year 2013, then decrease 5% each following year. The proposal also requires the schedule to be updated on a yearly basis to include a price for the 10th year of the schedule. For example, the 2022 price will be added to the schedule no later than January 31, 2012. The table below demonstrates the proposed schedule.

MA SACP Schedule 8_2_11

Prior to implementation, the proposed schedule is to go through a comment process. The comment period is currently open through August 15, 2011. Once all comments are collected, the DOER will review and begin the necessary process to amend the existing Solar Carve-Out provisions.

Mass DOER releases July statistics, SRECTrade continues to lead in Mass SREC market

Posted July 20th, 2011 by SRECTrade.

With the August SREC auction coming next Friday, July 29th, SRECTrade will post the first sale for 2011 SRECs in Massachusetts. Last week, the DOER released the most recently updated list of qualified and installed solar projects (excel download) in the state that are eligible for the solar carve-out. This gives us a unique opportunity to look behind the curtains and see what is going on in the SREC market.

Of the 649 projects that are operational, SRECTrade’s aggregation is by far the largest in the state, representing 36% of all facilities that are operational in Massachusetts. In terms of installed capacity, with nearly 3 MW of 19 MW installed as of July 11, the 16% share of capacity is second only to the state’s largest utility, National Grid who has installed 4 projects totaling 3.4 MW which represents 18% of the solar capacity in the market. That said, 16% understates SRECTrade’s presence in the Massachusetts since signing up for SRECTrade’s aggregation service is not a pre-requisite for selling through the platform.

Largest SREC Aggregations in Massachusetts

% of
Capacity

Capacity Rank

% of
Facilities

Facility Rank

National Grid

17.7%

#1

0.6%

#16

SRECTrade

15.8%

#2

36.1%

#1

Totals: 649 Facilities / 19.0 MW

Although key features like transparent, competitive market pricing, low fees, no contracts to sign and online access to the SRECs that are not lumped together with other facilities have made SRECTrade an attractive option to solar owners, the success of the platform can ultimately be attributed to the network of installers that recommend it to their customers. According to the DOER’s report, 42 of the 111 installers with facilities in the ground have customers with SRECTrade, including 8 of the top 10 installers by volume.

Top Installers In SRECTrade’s Network as of July 11, 2011 (as published by DOER)
– My Generation Energy, Inc., Brewster, MA
– SunBug Solar, Somerville, MA
– Sunlight Solar Energy, Waltham, MA
– E2 Solar Inc., Hyannis, MA
– Alteris Renewables Inc., Natick, MA
– NorthEast Solar Design Associates, West Hatfield, MA
– South Mountain Company, Inc., West Tisbury, MA
– SolarFlair Energy, Inc., Framingham, MA

The SRECTrade aggregation is not a prerequisite to participate in the SRECTrade market. The platform is open to anyone in the market looking to sell SRECs. The improved fee structure makes SRECTrade a simple and inexpensive option for aggregations with SRECs to sell. The combination of an open platform and guaranteed volume coming from the state’s largest aggregation makes SRECTrade the top destination in Massachusetts for entities with compliance obligations.

SRECTrade’s unique Massachusetts aggregation fosters individual control and market diversity

Posted March 30th, 2011 by SRECTrade.

A key (and unique) benefit of the SRECTrade aggregation in Massachusetts is that all facilities produce their own SRECs and can track and control them online. SRECs are created each quarter at a rate of 1 SREC per 1,000 kWh and tagged to each individual facility in the SRECTrade aggregation. Any remainder is then carried forward and added to the generation for the next quarter.

One of the fundamental components of any successful market is diversity of sellers and buyers. The market-based platform that SRECTrade has designed relies on this diversity. In Massachusetts, SRECTrade manages the largest aggregation in the state’s SREC program. One of the key selling points of the SRECTrade aggregation over others is the individual facility’s ownership of SRECs. Unlike other aggregations where the generation of multiple facilities are combined to create “shared” SRECs in NEPOOL GIS, SRECTrade takes additional steps to ensure that each facility has its own separate SREC account in NEPOOL GIS.

By way of background, there are 3 types of entities that make up the SREC ecosystem in Massachusetts. The Mass CEC Production Tracking System (PTS) is responsible for verifying readings and transferring them to the SREC tracking registry. NEPOOL GIS is the SREC tracking registry that every aggregation will use to track and trade SRECs in the market. In addition to providing a market functionality, SRECTrade offers an aggregation service, known as EasyREC, that gives individual solar facilities access to their SRECs and the market in one online account on SRECTrade.com. Verification (PTS), tracking (NEPOOL) and trading (SRECTrade) make these markets work.

Prior to the SREC program in Massachusetts, a similar structure was used for the Class I REC market dominated by wind and other non-solar renewables. A major difference between the Class I REC market and the SREC market is the value per certificate. Class I RECs trade around $10/REC, while SRECs could be anywhere from $300 to $600/SREC. Since the value (and variability) of the Class I REC market is so insignificant, the existing aggregation model was simplified to combine the generation of all the facilities in an aggregation into one REC account. When this happens, the RECs are only tagged to the aggregation and not to any individual facility. This doesn’t work for SRECs since the value is so much greater and individual ownership is therefore much more important.

The problem with the existing model at the implementation of the Massachusetts SREC program was that it limited the diversity of sellers. All the SRECs created by an aggregation would be tagged to the aggregation and not-differentiated. It also created complexity around accountability in the SREC market, where a buyer who purchases from an aggregation will have no way of verifying what facility the SREC comes from and where that facility is located (though PTS does account for this at the generation level). From the standpoint of SRECTrade, it would not be possible to operate a fair and competitive market if the SRECTrade aggregation lumped all of its customers’ generation together to create one large batch of SRECs. The resulting market on SRECTrade.com would include a couple smaller aggregations and one large seller representing all of SRECTrade’s aggregation. Facility owners would lose control over when, where and how much the SRECs were sold for in the market.

Fortunately, SRECTrade was able to work with the DOER, NEPOOL and PTS to implement a solution that allowed individual facilities to have their own listings in NEPOOL GIS. Their flexibility in allowing aggregations to report for individual facilities meant that any generation reported by a facility to PTS is sent directly to that facility’s record in NEPOOL GIS each quarter, where the SRECs are created for the facility. Since SRECs are created for every 1,000 kWh, any remainder is then carried forward and added to the next quarter. The screenshot of anĀ online account on SRECTrade.com is a good example of how SRECs are created and the remaining generation is carried forward.

In establishing individual facility ownership of SRECs, SRECTrade has successfully created a diverse platform that gives sellers the control over, and accountability for, their own SRECs in the market. Without this diversity, the open, public and fair market platform would not exist and facility owners would be limited to the options provided by a small group of non-transparent aggregators – a throwback to the early years of the New Jersey SREC programs when the early aggregators could make as much as 40% on trades behind closed doors. Fortunately, the advent of the public SREC markets have transferred much of the SREC value back to the facility owners where it belongs.