Friends, can we have an important conversation about Renewable Energy Credits?
"But Erin," you say, "What even is a REC? It sounds boring." And, yes, I know it sounds boring. But it's very important.
In Colorado, a REC represents all of the renewable attributes and pollution reductions that are associated with one MWh of electricity generated from a renewable resource. RECs were originally created as a fungible way to comply with state renewable energy standard policies.
And this is so important: only the person who owns the REC can legally claim the "renewableness" of that energy, or the pollution reduction benefits of that energy.
Now, for a long time, if you wanted to install solar on your roof you had to agree to sell all the RECs generated by your solar panels to your utility. So you get the benefit of net metering and those cost savings, but you've forefitted the right to claim you're renewable.
You'd be required to sign a contract w your utility when the panels are installed saying "I hereby give you all the RECs generated by my system" in exchange for an incentive payment that offsets the upfront cost of the system.
Your utility could then turn around and sell the REC generated by your rooftop solar to someone else -- a utility in another state with a higher renewable standard, or a private company who wants to claim they're "100% renewable."
If all you care about is costs, this is all NBD. But if you care about claiming you're "powered by renewable energy," it is a BD. You can't do it. You've sold away all your renewable claims. Not many people cared about this back in the 00s, when RECs burst onto the scene.
But today you've got cities and counties & businesses all over the country with BIG renewable energy goals! Meeting those goals is way harder if you're forced to hand any RECs you generated w local renewables over to your utility, who turns around & sells them to someone else.
If you care about your personal carbon footprint, if you want your city to reach 100% clean energy, if you want to market your business as "powered by renewables," then YOU NEED TO CARE ABOUT RECS!
These days, if you're an Xcel or Black HIlls customer in CO who installs rooftop solar, you have an option to sell your RECs for a modest (like, *very* modest) payment, or to do "net metering only" and keep your RECs.
And today, the PUC adopted a new rule that will enable community solar garden subscribers an option to retain the RECs that are generated by their subscriptions, rather than being forced to sell them to the utility. This is good! (You can read it here: https://www.dora.state.co.us/pls/efi/EFI_Search_UI.Show_Decision?p_session_id=&p_dec=27547)
Thank you for reading this many tweets of "Erin Rants About RECs," you beautiful weirdo.
PS: you could solve a lot of these issues with this One Weird Policy Trick: decoupling incentive payments from REC purchases. https://twitter.com/erinoverturf/status/1281568513455316992
You can follow @erinoverturf.
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