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.
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