Figure 5 - uploaded by J. Heeter
Content may be subject to copyright.
Source publication
This report documents the status and trends of 'compliance'--renewable energy certificate (REC) markets used to meet state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requirements--and 'voluntary' markets--those in which consumers and institutions purchase renewable energy to match their electricity needs on a voluntary basis. Today, 29 states and the Distr...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... have created REC tracking systems to verify compliance with RPS targets. These electronic tracking systems ensure that RECs are only “retired” (used to meet compliance) once by assigning a unique serial number to each megawatt-hour of renewable energy generation, which constitutes a REC. The systems also track the attributes of RECs, such as the type of renewable energy facility (e.g., wind or biomass), the project location, and the generation date. In compliance markets, tracking systems are used by both obligated utilities and by public utility commissions (PUCs) that oversee compliance. Utilities use the systems to manage their REC portfolios, transfer RECs to others, and ultimately to demonstrate compliance with the RPS by transferring RECs into retirement accounts. RECs deposited into retirement accounts can no longer be traded. PUCs use retirement accounts to verify the number of RECs a utility is using to comply with RPS requirements. Tracking systems are also used in voluntary markets, though their use is not as predominant as in compliance markets. The Green-e Energy certification program, a leading certifier and auditor of RECs in the voluntary market, allows green power suppliers to use tracking systems to simplify some parts of the Green-e audit process. The use of tracking systems to meet Green-e Energy requirements has increased in the past few years (Terada 2011). In the United States, there are currently nine different tracking systems (Table 2). Tracking systems operate primarily on a regional basis, since many state RPS policies allow RECs from regions to contribute. REC tracking systems in some cases follow the same boundaries as local regional transmission organizations (RTOs) or ISOs (Figure 5). The Texas Renewable Energy Credit Program, started in 2002, was the first system to launch. Since then, the number of systems has grown and tracking systems now exist, which together cover all 50 states. Regional systems serve groups of states: New England Power Pool-Generation Information System (NEPOOL-GIS) serves New England; PJM- Generation Attribute Tracking System (GATS) serves areas of PJM Interconnection, mostly in the Mid-Atlantic; Western Renewable Energy Generation Information System (WREGIS) serves western states; and the Midwest Renewable Energy Tracking System (M-RETS) serves the Midwest. In addition to the regional systems, some tracking systems have been developed to serve a particular state. Individual state systems include the Texas Renewable Energy Credit system, Nevada Tracks Renewable Energy Credits (NVTRECS), Michigan Renewable Energy Certification System (MI-RECS), and the North Carolina Renewable Energy Tracking System (NC-RETS). Finally, the North American Renewables Registry (NARR) was created in 2009 to track any state or province not covered by one of the other tracking systems. Missouri has elected to use NARR to track compliance with its ...
Context 2
... ES-1. Comparison of compliance and voluntary markets for new renewable energy, 2005–2010........................................................................................................................... v Figure ES-2. Estimated annual voluntary sales by market sector, 2006–2010 .............................. vi Figure 1. State RPS policies map .................................................................................................... 3 Figure 2. Initial compliance year for state RPS policies ................................................................. 4 Figure 3. Historic and projected estimated demand for new renewable energy due to state RPS requirements, 2010–2020 .................................................................................................... 4 Figure 4. Comparison of compliance and voluntary markets for new renewable energy, 2005– 2010..................................................................................................................................... 5 Figure 5. Renewable energy tracking systems in North America .................................................. 9 Figure 6. SRECs issued in PJM-GATS, 2010 .............................................................................. 12 Figure 7. Compliance market (Tier 1) REC prices, January 2007–August 2011 ......................... 14 Figure 8. Compliance market SREC spot prices, August 2009–September 2011 ........................ 15 Figure 9. RECs retired for RPS compliance in PJM states, 2010 ................................................. 18 Figure 10. Utility green power and competitive market sales by state, 2009 ............................... 19 Figure 11. Estimated green power sales by renewable energy source, 2010 ................................ 20 Figure 12. Estimated annual voluntary sales by market sector, 2006–2010 ................................. 22 Figure 13. Residential and nonresidential voluntary sales, 2006–2010....................................... 24 Figure 14. Trends in utility green pricing premiums, 2002–2010 ................................................ 29 Figure 15. Estimated average marketing and administrative costs for utilities’ tracking expenses (responding 4 or 5), 2010 .................................................................................................. 32 Figure 16. Voluntary REC prices, January 2008–August 2011.................................................... 33 Figure 17. Cumulative capacity of community solar programs, January 2006–June 2011 .......... ...
Citations
... Referring to data of China's GEC subscription trading platform, as of August 2023, China has issued more than 118 million GECs, but the cumulative transaction volume is only 41.63 million, resulting in a supply demand ratio of 2.83 [30]. Statistics from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on the total size of the U.S. voluntary green electricity market show that the total power generation registered by Green-e is approximately 3-4 times larger than that required by the entire market [31]. ...
The supply of green electricity certificates (GECs) exceeds the demand, leading to companies being more willing to purchase GECs to meet their emission reduction obligations. However, concerns have been raised about the environmental impact of renewable energy (RE) projects labeled as “greenwashing”. Drawing on the “additionality” theory, we developed a cost model with construction, operation, and discount rates. We utilized cost data from China’s onshore wind and photovoltaic power generation in our study. After 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations, we made the following findings: (1) The environmental benefits of RE power generation diminish over time, and the time limit for judging whether RE projects have additional costs compared with traditional thermal power should be considered; (2) The time limit for marginal environmental effects of China’s onshore wind and photovoltaic power generation is estimated to be 7.65–10.78 years and 5.44–7.25 years, respectively. The analysis methods and ideas proposed in this paper can provide reference for the development of the GEC system in China and even other countries.
... D RIVEN by government incentives as well as environmental requirements, grid-connected voltage source inverters (VSIs) for wind and photovoltaic (PV) generation systems have been significantly developed in recent years [1], [2]. To meet the requirement of grid interconnection standards, current control pulsewidth modulation (PWM) techniques are usually employed to produce the high quality output with fast and accurate current response. ...
In the last decades, predictive current control (PCC) has been widely implemented for grid-connected voltage source inverters (VSIs) due to the advantages of low current harmonic injection, fast dynamic response and easy implementation for digital control systems. However, with the increasing switching frequency of VSIs applied to pursue a better output quality, inevitable time delay and uncertain system disturbances are aggravating the system performance and stability which presents a serious challenge for the PCC design. Thus, a new PCC algorithm has been proposed in this paper for a single-phase VSI to improve the quality of the current fed to the grid as well as enhance the system stability and robustness. The proposed control scheme is developed from the traditional predictive current controller along with a simple weighted filter predictor (WFP) and a robust adaptive voltage compensator (AVC). The results of simulation and experiment investigation have demonstrated the improvements of the proposed control scheme in inverter output quality and robustness to parameter variations. IEEE
... California, as well as other states, requires a minimum percentage of the mandate to be met either by using in-state renewable resources or by using out-of-state renewable resources that are scheduled into the CAISO. Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Nevada, on the other hand, require 100% of in-state deliverability of generation from eligible renewable resources (Heeter and Bird, 2011). In our model, we do not consider all of these features and specifications of each state RPS in the WECC. ...
In the U.S., individual states enact Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs) for renewable electricity production with little coordination. Each state imposes restrictions on the amounts and locations of qualifying renewable generation. Using a co-optimization (transmission and generation) planning model, we quantify the long run economic benefits of allowing flexibility in the trading of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) among the U.S. states belonging to the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC). We characterize flexibility in terms of the amount and geographic eligibility of out-of-state RECs that can be used to meet a state’s RPS goal. Although more trade would be expected to have economic benefits, neither the size of these benefits nor the effects of such trading on infrastructure investments, CO2 emissions and energy prices have been previously quantified.
We find that up to 90% of the economic benefits are captured if approximately 25% of unbundled RECs are allowed to be acquired from out of state. Furthermore, increasing REC trading flexibility does not necessarily result in either higher transmission investment costs or a substantial impact on CO2 emissions.
Finally, increasing REC trading flexibility decreases energy prices in some states and increases them elsewhere, while the WECC-wide average energy price decreases.
... The challenge remains in terms of unpredictable aspects of consumers' involvement and diversified levels of dependencies. Prominent causes of the unpredictability and reasons for expected periodic updates to the consumer products or services are identified and listed below [8], [18], [19], and [20]. ...
... The selected use case is smart grid metering pertaining to retail energy sectors that requires incorporating FERC for utility [19] related compliances, PCI-DSS for payment card processing, and SSAE 16 (Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements no. 16) for reporting. ...
Traditionally, the compliances are stored and updated in hierarchical data sets through collective information resources of an enterprise. Organizations are facing significant challenges to consistently communicate compliance requirements across multiple lines-of-business, departments, applications, vendors, partners, and diversified types of consumers. It makes it more difficult due to the necessary continuous upgrades of compliances to satisfy impending regulatory policies that can vary based on numerous factors such as product or service offerings, industry sectors, and places of business. This paper examines the essentiality of an integrative approach to consistently and efficiently imply compliances. Consequently, it presents an approach in consideration of multifaceted compliance-aware data services (DSs) that enables degree of divergence in business rules. The emphasis is to leverage and introduce existing data sources as well as operative business rules that can eliminate need of transformation programs to manage compliances and corresponding regulatory policies. The initial classification of compliance scenarios (CSs) are derived to standardize and dependably evaluate the governance of compliance-aware DSs in the characteristics of consumer products' or services' regulations, reportable across an organization.
... The retailers that operate in this voluntary green power market typically purchase Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) from renewable energy project developers to resell to their customers. The vast majority of the U.S. voluntary green power market is based upon wind power projects to supply these RECs [1,2]. ...
... In 2010, Green-e certified generation accounted for 65% of the U.S. voluntary green power market, and the vast majority of Green-e registered generation capacity is wind power [15]. Further, the vast majority of the U.S. voluntary green power market is associated with wind power (83%) and some form of REC transaction (56e85%) 3 [2]. Therefore, the focus on wind power projects associated with the Green-e program is assumed to be a reasonable proxy for the broader voluntary green power market. ...
... Map of regional electric grids in the contiguous United States with illustration of locations and capacities of wind facilities considered in this study. 2 The Green-e energy program certified retail and wholesale green power products and is administered by the Center for Resource Solutions and is the largest such program in the United States. See http://www.green-e.org/. ...
... The majority participants purchased RECs that were unbundled from contracts for the supply of electricity, with the remainder consisting of utility green pricing programs and competitive (restructured) electricity markets where consumers can directly contract with generators. 3 Wind energy supplied that vast majority of green power markets in 2010 (83.1%) (Heeter and Bird, 2011). ...
... The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimated the 2010 value of these markets (i.e., the incremental cost of green power products like RECs beyond the value of the electric power) in the United States was between $168 million and $285 million (0.05-0.08% of total U.S. electricity market). Roughly threequarters of these sales were to non-residential customers (e.g., industrial and commercial) (Heeter and Bird, 2011). Dozens of companies market unbundled RECs directly to residential, commercial, and industrial customers in the United States. ...
... In October 2010, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed revisions to its Green Guides, which provide guidance to marketers to help them avoid making misleading environmental claims. An issue of explicit focus for these new Guides is the question of what claims are appropriate with respect to RECs (FTC, 2010;Heeter and Bird, 2011). This issue has also been recently taken up by the GHG Protocol Initiative, led by the World Resources Institute and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (Blyth, 2012). ...
This paper presents results from a model of a representative wind power investor's decision making process using a Monte Carlo simulation of a project financial analysis. Data, in the form of probability distribution functions (PDFs) for key input variables were collected from interviews with investors and other professionals active in the U.S. wind power industry using a formal expert elicitation protocol. This study presents the first quantitative estimates of the effect of the U.S. voluntary Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) market on renewable energy generation. The results indicate that the investment decisions of wind power project developers in the United States are unlikely to have been altered by the voluntary REC market. The problem with the current voluntary REC market is that it does not offer developers a reliable risk-adjusted revenue stream. Consequently, the claims by U.S. green power retailers and promoters that voluntary market RECs result in additional wind power projects lack credibility. Even dramatic increases in voluntary market REC prices, in the absence of long-term contracts, were found to have only a small effect on investor behavior.
... A renewable product can be in terms of fixed green energy quantity or a blended green and brown energy with certain percentage of green guaranteed. [20], [1]. ...
... Finally, "ALL" represents our sourcing configuration that is allowed to choose from among all the options -on-site, off-site, and implicit. We consider renewable power output traces from the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study [20] of NREL that we summarize in Table VI. We choose W3 as our off-site wind trace because it has 43% average generation capacity factor, which is at the higher end of wind energy capacity factor (from 20% to 45%). ...
... AND SOLAR POWER TRACES[20] USED IN OUR EVALUATION. Energy Supply:Table IIlists relevant parameters for the investment of renewable energy generation facilities. ...
Datacenters are facing increasing pressure to cap their carbon footprints at low cost. Recent work has shown the significant environmental benefits of using renewable energy for datacenters by supply-following techniques (workload scheduling, geographical load balancing, etc.) However, all such prior work has only considered on-site renewable generation when numerous other options also exist, which may be superior to on-site renewables for many datacenters. Alternative ways for datacenters to incorporate renewable energy into their overall energy portfolio include: construction of or investment into off-site renewable farms at locations with more abundant renewable energy potential, indirect purchase of renewable energy through buying renewable energy certificates (RECs), purchase of renewable energy products such as power purchase agreements (PPAs) or through third-party renewable providers. We propose a general, optimization-based framework to minimize datacenter costs in the presence of different carbon footprint reduction goals, renewable energy characteristics, policies, utility tariff, and energy storage devices (ESDs). We expect that our work can help datacenter operators make informed decisions about sustainable, renewable-energy-powered IT system design.
... However, voluntary SREC transactions have been limited to date. In 2010, SRECs represented 0.2% of U.S. voluntary market sales, which includes sales by utility green pricing programs, competitive green power programs, and unbundled REC purchases (Heeter and Bird 2011). In some instances utilities use SRECs to include solar in the resource mix of utility green power programs offered to residential and small commercial customers, but they are a relatively small fraction of total program supplies. ...
... In some instances utilities use SRECs to include solar in the resource mix of utility green power programs offered to residential and small commercial customers, but they are a relatively small fraction of total program supplies. In 2010, utility programs procured about 39,000 MWh of solar energy to supply 0.8% of the green energy sold through their green pricing programs (Heeter and Bird 2011). In some instances, utilities have offered fixed-price, long-term contracts for the solar energy output and used the SRECs to supply green pricing programs. ...
This paper examines experience in solar renewable energy certificate (SREC) markets in the United States. It describes how SREC markets function--key policy design provisions, eligible technologies, state and regional eligibility rules, solar alternative compliance payments, measurement and verification methods, long-term contracting provisions, and rate caps. It also examines the trends of SREC markets--trading volumes, sourcing trends, trends in the size of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems driven by these markets, and trends in price and compliance. Throughout, the paper explores key issues and challenges facing SREC markets and attempts by policymakers to address some of these market barriers. Data and information presented in this report are derived from SREC tracking systems, brokers and auctions, published reports, and information gleaned from market participants and interviews with state regulators responsible for SREC market implementation. The last section summarizes key findings.
A multiple market trading mechanism for the VPP to participate in electricity, renewable energy certificate (REC) and carbon emission right (CER) markets is proposed. With the introduction of the inventory mechanism of REC and CER, the profit of the VPP increases and better trading decisions with multiple markets are made under the requirements of renewable portfolio standard (RPS) and carbon emission (CE) quota requirements. According to the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions of the proposed model, properties of the multiple market trading mechanism are discussed. Results from case studies verify the effectiveness of the proposed model.
