Posts Tagged ‘NJ’

New Jersey Senate Passes Concurrence on S-2276

Posted January 10th, 2018 by SRECTrade.

Update: Governor Chris Christie pocket vetoed Senate Bill 2276 (S-2276) when he left office on January 16, 2018.

Please note that the original blog post was slightly revised on January 11, 2018.

On Monday, January 8th, the New Jersey Senate passed the amended Senate Bill 2276 (S-2276), following the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee’s amendments from mid-2017. The bill now rests on the desk of outgoing Governor Chris Christie (R) for a decision. Although it appears likely that Gov. Christie will pocket veto the legislation when his term ends on Tuesday, January 16th, Governor-Elect Phil Murphy (D) has his eyes set on New Jersey accomplishing 100 percent clean energy by 2050 and leading New Jersey to regain its status as a national leader in solar.

The bill passed by a considerable margin (26-8), demonstrating a strong consensus for support of the Garden State’s renewable energy industry, and also sending an important message to Governor-Elect Murphy regarding the urgency of this legislation.

If signed into law, the bill would establish the New Jersey Solar Energy Study Commission and increase the state’s solar renewable energy portfolio standard. The commission is intended to analyze all aspects of New Jersey’s solar industry and report findings and recommendations to the Governor and Legislature, specifically:

As to whether New Jersey’s solar renewable portfolio standard (RPS) should be modified and extended through a prescribed period, but at least through energy year 2031;
The current trends in utility interconnection study processes and costs; and
The status and future of the state’s solar renewable energy credit market

In the bill, the Legislature speculated that New Jersey’s current statutory solar RPS could result in the loss of over 120 MW of solar per year through 2021, over $240 million per year in lost solar projects, and 5,000 clean energy jobs per year. To ensure the continued success of New Jersey’s solar industry, it is critical that the state pass both interim and future long-term measures to stabilize the industry and promote long-term, sustainable growth.

SRECTrade will continue to provide updates on this and other New Jersey legislative efforts.

Tags: carve out, New Jersey, NJ, RPS, S-2276
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New Jersey SREC Update – November 2017

Posted November 22nd, 2017 by SRECTrade.

With the announcement of new NJ solar build data last week, we wanted to provide an update on the current status of New Jersey SREC supply and demand. Since our last update in June 2017, build over the last 6 months (through September) has declined, pacing at 22.7 MW/month. That is approximately a 23.7% decrease against the last 12 month (LTM) rate of 29.8 MW/month. Additionally, the 3 months ending September 2017 saw a 45.5% decline in total build to 48.1 MW for the quarter, against 88.2 MW for the 3 months ending June 2017.

Electricity load served for reporting year 2017, ending May 2017, is estimated to be up 1.3% over RY2016 to 75.2 million megawatt hours. This is a shift in the flat to declining trend the market has experienced since reporting year 2012. Given current build and scenarios based off the 29.8 MW/month LTM rate, the NJ SREC market can expect an oversupply of approximately 500,000 SRECs during reporting year 2018 (approximately 20-25% over the estimated RY2018 requirement).

With regards to pricing, since the beginning of September pricing in the spot and forward markets have experienced appreciation. Pricing for NJ2018 and NJ2019 vintages has risen by approximately 12-14%, while pricing for NJ2020 and NJ2021 vintages has increased by approximately 30%. Price increases for the current vintages could be attributed to slightly lower than expected build rates and annual activity taking place ahead of the basic generation service (BGS) electricity auction, scheduled in early February 2018. Looking forward, price appreciation could also be due to early BGS activity, but also potentially attributed to the possibility of increased RPS requirements, particularly in light of the recent election of NJ Governor Phil Murphy and his stance on clean energy initiatives.

For a complete update on the supply and demand outlook, see our presentation here.

SRECTrade will continue to provide updates as available. Thank you and wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Tags: Capacity, New Jersey, NJ
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Reminder: NJ Brokerage Webinar Is Friday, 2/15/2013 at 3 pm ET

Posted February 14th, 2013 by SRECTrade.

SRECTrade’s brokerage team will cover NJ SREC market trends and capacity projections. The webinar is particularly geared for institutional and commercial scale market participants. Register for the webinar by clicking this link: https://srectrade.clickwebinar.com/NJ_Market_Update/register

About the speakers

Brad Bowery is the CEO of SRECTrade, a company he has managed since 2008. Under Brad’s stewardship SRECTrade provides SREC services for over 5,000 facilities and 70+ MW of aggregated solar capacity. Brad holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Steven Eisenberg is the Vice-President of Business Development. Steven has been with SRECTrade since 2010 and is responsible for starting and managing SRECTrade’s growing brokerage and institutional SREC asset management business units.

Alex Sheets comes to SRECTrade from SunEdison. As SRECTrade’s Director of Environmental Markets, Alex assists buyers and sellers in originating, executing, and negotiating SREC transactions in the over the counter markets.

Tags: NJ, SREC brokerage, SREC webinar, SRECs
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Watch out! Tricky New Jersey SREC Rules Require Prompt Registration and Extend SREC Life to Five Years

Posted February 11th, 2013 by SRECTrade.

NJ Board of Public Utilities (BPU) recently provided clarification on two SREC program rulings.

New solar energy projects must apply for an SRP number within 10 business days after the execution of a construction contract or face 12 month SREC eligibility suspension.

A June 4, 2012 BPU ruling requires that the NJ Office of Clean Energy (OCE) receive a NJ solar facility’s SREC Registration Program (SRP) application within 10 business days after the execution of the contract for purchase or installation of photovoltaic panels. The requirement is outlined on the NJ OCE webiste here. All non-compliant solar facilities will face a 12-month suspension from the date of interconnection. During that period, any SRECs created in PJM-GATS for that facility will not be marked as eligible for compliance in the NJ SREC market. Following the 12-month penalty period, PJM-GATS will reinstate the state certification number for all of those SRECs so that they will be valid for compliance. All SRECs created after the initial 12 months will be generated normally, and be immediately eligible for compliance in the SREC program.

SRECs created from photovoltaic generation on or after July 23, 2012 are eligible for five years. SRECs created from photovoltaic generation prior to July 23, 2012 are elgible for three years.

The second clarification concerned a section of S1925, which became law on July 23^rd, 2012, and among other things, increased the useful lifetime of SRECs in NJ from 3 years to 5 years. A detailed analysis of S1925 can be found here. The legislation was unclear whether the extended life would affect all SRECs (including prior compliance years’ SRECs), and if not, whether June 2012 and July 2012 SRECs would be treated separately than other NJ 2013 SRECs since the law was changed mid-month. The law states that, “SRECs shall be eligible for use in renewable energy portfolio standards compliance in the energy year in which they are generated, and for the following four energy years.” Since pre-July 2012 SRECs are never mentioned in the law, there appears to be no justification for treating them differently. Nonetheless, the BPU has so far failed to officially address this issue in writing. Originally, BPU staff verbally stated that only SRECs awarded for July 2012 generation and forward were to be awarded the extended lifetime. SRECTrade believes that the BPU’s verbal statements reflect the likely outcome of an official ruling later.

Tags: Eligibilty, NJ, NJ BPU, NJ SRECs, OCE, S1925, SREC eligibility, SRP
Posted in New Jersey | Comments Off on Watch out! Tricky New Jersey SREC Rules Require Prompt Registration and Extend SREC Life to Five Years

NJ Market Update Webinar: Friday, 2/15/2013 at 3 pm ET

Posted February 11th, 2013 by SRECTrade.

SRECTrade’s brokerage team is hosting a webinar covering the New Jersey SREC market on Friday, 2/15 at 3 pm ET. The presentation will cover NJ SREC market trends and capacity projections. The discussion will target clients representing commercial and utility-scale projects.

Project developers, SREC asset owners with projects over 250 kW in size, and other interested parties are encouraged to participate. The webinar will be recorded and posted online. Please register for this webinar by clicking the link posted here: https://srectrade.clickwebinar.com/NJ_Market_Update/register

SRECTrade will present another webinar focused on its retail and residential, defined as projects <250 kW, services for New Jersey installers and clients at a later date.

About the speakers:

Tags: brokerage, NJ, SRECs, webinar
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New Jersey SREC Update May 2012

Posted May 7th, 2012 by SRECTrade.

New Jersey SRECs recently traded at $115.16 per SREC in SRECTrade’s May 2012 auction. This follows the dramatic decline in prices that the New Jersey SREC market has experienced since the beginning of the 2012 energy year. Click here for historic data on SRECTrade’s New Jersey SREC market auction pricing.

What’s going on?

The New Jersey SREC market is oversupplied. The state’s Solar Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) targets a fixed number of megawatt hours (MW-hrs) needed to be purchased by electricity suppliers each compliance period. A MW-hr is the equivalent of one SREC, so in NJ we discuss the SREC market both in terms of total capacity installed in MW and total number of SRECs available each year. Under the current RPS, significantly more solar has been installed than is necessary to meet the state’s RPS goals for the next several years.

The 2012 reporting year (June 1, 2011 – May 31, 2012) requires 442,000 SRECs. Our March 2012 capacity analysis (scroll down to see the NJ numbers) shows that as of the beginning of April, total registered installed capacity was 670.9 MW with 386,500 SRECs issued. More recent data from the New Jersey Office of Clean Energy shows the installed capacity, as of March 31, 2012, at 730.3 MW. Additionally, approximately 455,000 SRECs have been issued in GATS from solar PV generation through March 2012. This figure, demonstrates that as of the last issuance period, there are more than enough SRECs available in the market to meet the 2012 reporting year requirement of 442,000 SRECs. The Generation Attribute Tracking System (GATS) is the organization that all New Jersey PV systems must register with in order to create and transact SRECs.

Another factor is that SREC issuance tends to follow a natural lag due to missing meter reading submissions and delays registering systems with GATS. Given our experience with this data, it’s reasonable to expect a further bump in SREC numbers through March 2012. Also, April and May 2012 SRECs will be issued at the end of May and June, respectively, and will also add to this year’s total SREC issuance figures.

The additional volume to be issued allows us to project that the market is likely 40% to 50% oversupplied for the 2012 energy year. Lastly, when analyzing the 2013 through 2015 energy year current RPS requirements, the figures show that the market will be oversupplied when taking into consideration eligible excess SRECs rolled forward from prior years and the existing amount of installed capacity as of 3/31/12 currently eligible to produce SRECs. The table below demonstrates this in more detail:

Proposals to stabilize the SREC market

Industry stakeholders are working with the New Jersey legislature to come up with a way to stabilize the NJ SREC market. A NJBiz.com article dated May 3^rd, mentions a possible bill proposal by Sen. Bob Smith (D-Piscataway), Chairman of the Senate Environment Committee, that would accelerate New Jersey’s solar goals while reducing how much buyers would need to pay for their SRECs if they don’t have enough SRECs in their portfolios at the end of each energy year.

To date, no bill has been made publicly available. Based on the information provided on the NJ State Legislature website, it appears the bill will be slated under the number S1925. The current description listed includes the following, “Revises certain solar renewable energy programs and requirements; provides for aggregating net metering of Class I renewable energy production on certain contiguous and non-contiguous properties owned by local government units and school districts.”

Until then, we must speculate on what the final contents of the bill will be. An additional consideration is that even if a bill is passed by the NJ legislature, the bill will likely not go into effect until the 2014 energy year which starts in June 2013.

Tags: Capacity, GATS, New Jersey, NJ, portfolio, Prices, Renewable, renewable portfolio standard, RPS, Solar, SRECs
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New Jersey Solar Legislation Doesn’t See the Light

Posted January 10th, 2012 by SRECTrade.

New Jersey legislation to modify the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) in order to increase demand to soak up existing excess supply failed to pass the NJ Legislature yesterday. In fact, the bill (S-2371) never even came to a vote because of disagreements among solar advocates, who were not in lockstep over issues such as the mix between distributed net-metered and larger utility scale projects.

Although Governor Christie signaled broad agreement with the majority of the bill in his Energy Master Plan, released in December, several last-minute changes were made in the final 2 days of the session. The complexity of these changes was apparently too great to digest given the limited time available. The view of the new legislature on this issue should not change appreciably with the start of the next session and the Governor’s support is clear.

At this point it is a matter of priority and the ability to put together a new bill and get it scheduled for a vote early in the new session. Although a setback for the solar industry in New Jersey for now, hopefully increased time to craft and debate the new bill will allow for more transparency and a lead to a better quality piece of legislation.

Tags: New Jersey, NJ, RPS, Solar, SREC
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New Jersey Capacity Update – Solar Continues to Push Forward

Posted November 28th, 2011 by SRECTrade.

NJ2012 Capacity Update

The New Jersey Office of Clean Energy (NJ OCE) published an updated installed solar projects list as of September 30, 2011. According to the NJ OCE, as of 9/30/11 the Garden State installed 447.7 MW of solar capacity. This equates to more than 20 MW added in the month of September, putting the state at an average of 27.1 MW per month and a total of 108.2 MW installed for the 2012 compliance year to date. NJ OCE estimates for October 2012 expect 44 MW of additional capacity to be installed, bringing total installed capacity to over 491 MW.

Although the NJ OCE reports 447.7 MW installed as of September 30, 2011, PJM GATS currently shows 431.2 MW registered to produce SRECs as of 11/26/11. It is common to see a difference in registered projects between the NJ OCE and PJM GATS reported figures as there is typically a delay from when systems are interconnected and installed to when they receive their NJ state certification number and become registered in GATS.

New Jersey’s 2012 reporting year solar requirement is currently set at 442,000 MWhs. Assuming a production factor 1.2 MWh per installed kW per year, the state needs approximately 370 MW operational all year long. As of 11/26/11, GATS has reported 163,507 SRECs issued through September 2011 generation. October 2011 generation will be issued on November 30, 2011. Given the volume issued through September 2011, approximately 37% of the required volume has been generated. This leaves a need of approximately 278,500 SRECs to meet the 442,000 MWh RY2012 target.

Monthly Capacity Analysis_v2-1

Assuming all NJ solar facilities produce at a 1.2 MWh production factor per kW per year, and all systems noted as installed on the NJ OCE installed project list received generation credit from their first full month of operation, the existing installed capacity of 447.7 MW will produce approximately 338,400* SRECs between October 2011 and May 2012. This additional generation will bring the NJ2012 SREC issuance total to approximately 501,900 SRECs, an excess of 60,000 MWhs. Assuming the October 2012 estimates are accurate, the additional of 44 MW in October creates additional oversupply, equating to a forecast of almost 530,600* NJ2012 SRECs minted and an excess of 88,600 MWh. Both of these scenarios only account for the existing installed capacity through September 2011 and estimates through October 2011. Additional supply will continue to come online through the remaining months of NJ2012, with more capacity anticipated to be pushed through at the end of the 2011 calendar year due to the expected expiration of the federal grant incentive. The additional supply coming online throughout the remaining months of NJ2012 will further impact the long SREC market NJ is facing and have an effect on the 2013 market.

NJ2013 SREC Market

As it currently stands, the NJ2013 (June 2012 – May 2013) Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) requires 596,000 MWhs of solar generation. This Solar REC requirement equals approximately 496.7 MW to be operational all year long, assuming the NJ2013 requirements are met only using 2013 vintage SRECs. Given the current market, and expected oversupply, the NJ2013 market will start off the year with between 60,000 – 88,600 MWhs already issued and eligible to meet the 2013 requirements. Note, this assumes the September figures and October estimates provided by the NJ OCE are accurate and do not take into consideration any additional capacity to be installed in the remaining months of the 2012 compliance period.

Assembly Bill 4226

Introduced on November 10, 2011, Assembly Bill 4226, sponsored by Assemblyman Upendra Chivakula (District 17), and Assemblyman Daniel Benson (District 14), would implement changes to the current solar RPS requirements. Under the current RPS, the SREC requirements are subject to a 20% increase per year through 2027 should the state meet or exceed its solar requirements three years in a row, while also experiencing a decline in SREC pricing in those same three consecutive periods. The final paragraph of the current format of 4226, states that the 3 year time period would be reduced to 1 year and be applied beginning in the 2013 compliance period.

Should this bill be signed into law, the 20% increase would take effect in 2013. Currently, RY2013 has a requirement of 596,000 MWhs. A 20% increase would adjust the 2013 requirement to 715,200 MWh; equal to an additional 119,200 SRECs required or approximately 99.3 MW operational all year long.

Other solar trade and advocacy groups have actively suggested alternative proposals to the legislation, some of which include a revised SREC requirement schedule as well as a fixed SACP schedule through 2027. We will continue to keep a close eye on the legislative process and provide updates as more information is known and how it will impact RY2013 and future NJ compliance periods.

*This figure uses a PVWatts calculation assuming 1.2 MWh/kW/Year and takes into consideration seasonality for the remaining months left in the compliance period.

Tags: Capacity, New Jersey, NJ, PJM GATS, renewable portfolio standard, RPS, Solar, SRECs
Posted in New Jersey, SREC Markets | 1 Comment »

Solar Capacity in the SREC States – December 2010

Posted January 5th, 2011 by SRECTrade.

SRECTrade SREC Markets Report: December 2010

The following post outlines the megawatts of solar capacity certified and/or registered to create SRECs in the SREC markets SRECTrade currently serves.

PJM Eligible Systems

As of the end of December, there were 11,241 solar PV (11,015) and solar thermal (226) systems registered and eligible to create SRECs in the PJM Generation Attribute Tracking System registry. Of these eligible systems, 35 (~0.3%) have a nameplate capacity of 1 megawatt or greater, of which only 3 systems are greater than 5 MW. The largest system, currently located in Ohio, is 12 MW, and the second largest, located in Chicago and eligible for the PA and DC markets, is 10 MW. The third largest system, located in NJ, is 5.6 MW.

Massachusetts DOER Qualified Projects

As of December 10, 2010, there were 180 MA DOER qualified solar projects; 156 operational and 24 not operational. Of these qualified systems, 9 (~5.0%) have a nameplate capacity of 1 megawatt or greater, of which only 2 are between 1.5 and 2 MW. None of the projects greater than 1 MW are currently operational.

Capacity Summary By State

The tables below demonstrate the capacity breakout by state. Note, that for all PJM GATS registered projects, each state includes all projects certified to sell into that state. State RPS programs that allow for systems sited in other states to participate have been broken up by systems sited in state and out of state. For example, PA In State includes projects eligible to sell into the PA SREC market as well as projects that may also be eligible to sell into OH and DC. PA Out of State includes systems sited in states with their own state SREC market (i.e. DE) as well as systems sited in states that have no SREC market (i.e. VA). Also, it is important to note that the Current Capacity represents the total megawatts eligible to produce and sell SRECs as of the noted date, while the Estimated Required Capacity – Current and Next Reporting Year represents the estimated number of MW that need to be online on average throughout the reporting period to meet the RPS requirement within each state. For example, New Jersey needs approximately 255 MW online for the entire 2011 reporting year to meet the RPS requirement. Additionally, the data presented below does not include projects that are in the pipeline or currently going through the registration process in each state program. This data represents specifically the projects that have been approved for the corresponding state SREC markets to date.

Dec JPEG Image updated

Tags: DE, GATS, MA, MD, megawatt, NJ, OH, PA, RECs, Renewable Energy Certificates, renewable portfolio standard, RPS, Solar Capacity, Solar PV, Solar Renewable Energy Certificates, Solar Thermal, SREC, SRECs, Washington, Washington, DC
Posted in Capacity Summary, SREC Markets | 2 Comments »