Local homeowners who have invested in solar power have essentially been shut out of local community power programs. If they opt in, they get a lower rate on electricity coming from the grid but lose fees earned from their excess power generation that Eversource’s net-metering program provides.
For most solar owners like me, staying with Eversource as the electricity supplier has made the most financial sense. By law, Eversource is obligated to allow community power customers to continue with its net-metering program. However, the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission has given Eversource an exemption due to the utility’s claim it is technically unable to comply.
While Eversource has stated that it intends to comply eventually, the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire (CPCNH) now offers another option for homeowners and small businesses to earn income from power that their solar panels generate.
CPCNH manages the community power programs for many area towns, such as Peterborough, Temple and Harrisville, along with Cheshire County. Last week, it launched its REC Aggregation Program, which provides a means for solar panel owners to sell renewable energy certificates (RECs) to them.
Mark Bolinger, CPCNH director of projects and programs, was kind enough to provide me the details of the REC Aggregation Program.
A REC is an energy market instrument used to buy and sell energy from a renewable energy source such as solar or wind. It allows for financial accounting, tracking compliance toward state and federal policy goals and assigning ownership of renewable energy. A single REC represents one megawatt-hour (MWh) of energy delivered to the electrical grid.
“Once an electron generated by a solar or wind plant flows out onto the grid, it becomes indistinguishable from all other electrons generated by other resources (like coal, natural gas, or nuclear). RECs provide a way to track these electrons, at least from an accounting or financial perspective,” said Bolinger.
REC aggregation allows small generators such as residential rooftop solar systems to sell their excess output. The number of RECs a single rooftop solar array generates in a year would not be of interest to buyers looking for larger volumes.
“By aggregating RECs from many small systems, aggregators can accumulate enough volume to be of interest to REC buyers,” said Bolinger. “In this way, REC aggregators give small residential rooftop PV [photovoltaic or solar] systems a way to access the REC market.”
Entities that typically buy RECs do so to demonstrate compliance with state policies (e.g., electric utilities) or progress toward renewable energy goals (e.g., large corporations). Rooftop solar arrays are too small to meet those needs. REC aggregators buy and aggregate RECs from small residential solar systems. Once they reach a large enough volume of RECs, they can resell them to buyers at a higher price.
“CPCNH is a different type of aggregator, in the sense that we plan to ‘retire’ (rather than resell) all the RECs that we aggregate and purchase so that they contribute to the renewable energy content of our electricity products,” said Bolinger. “In other words, we are not reselling RECs. We are simply retiring them and counting them as part of our electricity products. In this way, our member-customers who sell us their RECs are directly contributing to the renewable content of their electricity supply.”
Eversource net-metering customers save money by generating their own electricity rather than purchasing it. They also receive revenue by exporting excess solar electricity onto the grid. RECs are separate from that process. One REC represents the “renewable attributes” from 1,000 kWh of renewable generation. Those attributes can be sold separately from the underlying generation. Hence, it is possible to net-meter and sell RECs to an aggregator—one does not preclude the other.
What you can receive from selling RECs depends on the market. Here’s the process that CPCNH will follow. They will survey the market every November at mid-month by reviewing daily REC broker sheets that show the prices for trading RECs. CPCNH then averages those quotes and sets its price at about 95% of that average. The remaining 5% or so covers costs to administer the program.
The price is then posted on the CPCNH website before Dec. 1 and fixed for the following calendar year. Customers will have until the end of this year to cancel their contract if they don’t like the price. If they don’t cancel, the contract automatically renews for the following year at the posted price.
“We will pay just that one REC price to anyone who sells us RECs. We will not differentiate across towns,” said Bolinger.
Any residential and non-residential customer-generator in New Hampshire with qualifying renewable generation projects (typically solar but other renewable resources also qualify) are eligible for the REC Aggregation Program. They do not need to join their local community power program to take advantage of the program.
There are also some equipment requirements; for example, the system must have a “revenue-grade meter” to accurately measure the number of kWh generated by the system over time.
“There is no cost to participate in the program, though registering and signing up is admittedly a bit cumbersome (there is a lot of paperwork!),” said Bolinger. “You will need to have some tolerance for that kind of thing.”
The program launched last week. If you are interested in joining, go to the CPCNH website at cpcnh.org/rec. It has step-by-step instructions about how to get set up and links to CPCNH’s contract and a required form from the New Hampshire Department of Energy. You can enter your information on both forms on the website.
Michael Nadeau is a member of the Peterborough Renewable Energy Project.