Buying Community Solar? Watch the RECs

[begreen]

The article focuses on deals in Vermont and Illinois, but it's good to know what you are getting in any state.

(broken link removed to http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/buyer-beware-solar-power-missing-key-ingredient-36344294)

 

[CaptSpiff]

I learned this about a year ago on this very site!

I was watching a thread about a NJ poster and a MA poster comparing the volatility of the "SREC Market Prices", but both were pretty happy that they got a couple hundred "free" dollars extra every year for their rooftop solar.

I asked a friend here on Long Island why I never heard about this "bonus money" and he said that "you forgo that benefit when you agree to take the upfront incentive from the local LIPA utility".

So the article talks about it as a "halo" or a "good feeling" when it's really future value taken from the buyer up front. We really are sheep in this "Green Environmental" game.

 

[peakbagger]

The folks who own their SRECs in Mass are laughing all the way to the bank. $450 per MW/hr produced every year cuts their payback way down. The vast majority of folks that lease or sign a PPA are normally out of luck. I only get around $45/MWhr with a 30% commission by the broker so mine is far less lucrative but still covers my yearly utility service fee.

 

[DBoon]

For New York, from http://programs.dsireusa.org/system/program/detail/701

"NYSERDA holds rights to all the renewable attributes (SERCs)of the systems that are funded under NY-Sun program. Before NY-Sun program, NYSERDA held the rights to SRECs for the first three years after which it was SREC ownership was transferred to the system owner. Since there is no SREC market in NY, the SRECs produced by systems funded though NY-Sun program are retired by NYSERDA, and cannot be sold or traded."

 

[Where2]

Yet another example of "Read what you are signing, before you sign on the dotted line..." Depending on how much $$$ the NY-Sun program kicked in toward a qualifying system, giving away those SREC's for the life of the system may have been an expensive "horse trade" in the long run. I wonder which corporation will quietly acquire those SREC's in advance of a trading system emerging in NY?

Under the heading "System Eligibility" is the following statement: "NYSERDA will hold the title to renewable energy credits (RECs) associated with the system's energy production for the life of the system."

 

[DBoon]

giving away those SREC's for the life of the system may have been an expensive "horse trade" in the long run. I wonder which corporation will quietly acquire those SREC's in advance of a trading system emerging in NY?

Read again - the SRECs are retired, there is no SREC trading system in NY, so a PV system purchased in NY will gain the full benefit of renewable energy and cannot be greenwashed.

 

[georgepds]

Fwiiw...last rec was $474 here in Ma


Best investment I ever made (except for education)

 

[DUMF]

Opinion: solar/wind subsidies are in fact on the backs of tax payers who cannot afford the high upfront payouts for "renewables".
e.g. Tesla, mandated wind turbines, all high expense solar.
If these technologies are honestly to benefit society, then do what high tech has done--let a free market work.

 

[georgepds]

Opinion: solar/wind subsidies are in fact on the backs of tax payers who cannot afford the high upfront payouts for "renewables".
e.g. Tesla, mandated wind turbines, all high expense solar.
If these technologies are honestly to benefit society, then do what high tech has done--let a


Its not a free market its a regulated puublic utility... Just how free market were the subsidies for all those big nukes???

About time ordinary voters got a cut in what is a public benefit ..polution free power generation