On August 25, 2022, the Program Administrator provided the following final notice by email to all impacted system owners and aggregators regarding the September 1st deadline to submit certificates eligible for the highest incentive associated with electricity produced in Energy Year 2021 (June 2020 to May 2021). An initial notice was delivered on June 21, 2022 and then posted at https://solarincentivesnj.com/energy-year-2021-trecs-expiring/.
Per Section 14:8-10.6 – Mechanism for creation of TRECs (d) of the final Board Order establishing the Transition Renewable Energy Certificate (TREC) program, “A TREC may be redeemed in GATS in the energy year in which the electricity was produced or in the following energy year.”
The Electric Distribution Companies (EDCs) must report all Energy Year 2021 (EY21) certificates being retired for Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) Compliance purposes to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) by October 15, 2022. Therefore, TREC-eligible system owners were required to have all solar production from June 2020 to May 2021 processed in the PJM Generation Attribute Tracking System (GATS) by September 1, 2022.
EY21 certificates that were not invoiced to the EDCs by September 1, 2022, lost their TREC eligibility and instead are now categorized as a New Jersey Class I REC. NJ Class I RECs may be sold for NJ RPS compliance but at a significantly reduced value compared to TRECs.
New Jersey retail electricity suppliers must purchase Class I RECs to satisfy their NJ RPS Class I REC requirement. The average price for a Class I REC in 2021 was in the $10.00 to $15.00 range. You may find it easier to sell Class I RECs to brokers and aggregators rather than directly to Third Party Suppliers or BGS Providers due to the lower value, higher volume and hence relatively higher transaction costs in this market.
Please visit the New Jersey Clean Energy Program website at www.njcleanenergy.com for additional information.