Not sure what stage you’re at in the registration process? We can help! Answer a few questions to determine your status.

General Questions

TREC stands for Transition Renewable Energy Certificate. As a participant in New Jersey’s Transition Incentive (TI) program, you will create TRECs by submitting your solar meter reading each month to PJM GATS. Like RECs in other states, one TREC is created when a solar generator creates 1 MWh (or 1,000 kWh) of electricity. Once a TREC is generated by your system, it is sold to one of the electric utilities in New Jersey separate from the actual electricity produced. The number of TRECs produced is not affected by net metering or the amount of electricity used on-site.

SREC stands for Solar Renewable Energy Certificate and the “-II” indicates that the facility is within the SuSI Program. As a participant in New Jersey’s Successor Solar Incentive (SuSI) program, you will create SREC-II certificates by submitting your solar meter reading each month to PJM GATS. Like RECs in other states, one SREC-II certificate is created when a solar generator creates 1 MWh (or 1,000 kWh) of electricity. Once a certificate is generated by your system, it is sold to one of the electric utilities in New Jersey separate from the actual electricity produced. The number of certificates produced is not affected by net metering or the amount of electricity used on-site.

The Competitive Solar Incentive (CSI) Program will provide competitively set incentive values for grid supply projects and net metered non-residential projects greater than 5 MW (dc). The board staff is currently working with stakeholders to develop the design of the CSI Program with the goal of holding the first solicitation by early-to-mid 2022. For updates, please continue to check the Solar Proceedings page on the New Jersey Clean Energy Program (NJCEP) website.

System owners cannot choose which payment program to participate in. Payment eligibility is determined by the State Certification Number awarded to the solar facility by the New Jersey Clean Energy Program (NJCEP). Any facilities issued a TREC-eligible State Certification Number will continue to receive TREC payments for the 15-year program length. Similarly, new facilities issued a SuSI-eligible State Certification Number will continue to receive SREC-II payments for the 15-year program length.

You can view the New Jersey Clean Energy Program Solar Transition FAQs by clicking here.

The Solar Incentives NJ website is protected by a 128 bit SSL security certificate and all account transactions are conducted using an SSL secured connection with data stored in an encrypted database. You can verify that a proper SSL connection has been established by looking for the green indicator in the URL section of your browser bar with a locked lock symbol followed by “portal.solarincentivesnj.com” This indicates that you are connected to the legitimate NJ TREC website run by InClime on behalf of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, and that your data is encrypted before being sent over the internet.

There are a number of private companies that can assist you with REC management. Their service typically comes along with an administrative fee of the REC value. You can find a list of New Jersey Clean Energy Program approved Trade Allies that offer these services (aggregator and/or broker) here.

In order to receive certificate payments over the full length of either the TREC or SuSI program (15 years), you simply must maintain authority to manage the certificates associated with an eligible system. You also must accurately report meter readings to GATS and keep an active bank account on file with the program so that payments can successfully be initiated. If you would like to transfer the REC ownership of your system to another entity, you must complete a GATS Schedule A and provide this to the program administrator so that the payment account can be updated accordingly.

All four major EDCs are required to participate in the TREC and SuSI purchasing program: Atlantic City Electric Company (ACE), Jersey Central Power & Light Company (JCP&L), Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) and Rockland Electric Company (RECO). New Jersey residents serviced by a Municipal Utility or Rural Electric Cooperative are still eligible to participate.

You can find a list of New Jersey Clean Energy Program approved Trade Allies here.

No. For questions about selling RECs after your SRP program eligibility has expired, please contact NJCEP directly by email at [email protected] or phone at 1-866-NJSMART (866-657-6278).

Payments

The Base Compensation is $152/REC. REC prices are then applied with a TREC factor of 1 ($152), .85 ($129.20), or .6 ($91.20) based on project type. You can confirm your project type based on the letters preceding “TREC” within your NJ Cert #:

Project Type TREC Base Price TREC Factor Effective Price NJ Certification Number
Subsection (t): landfill, brownfield, areas of historic fill $152 1 $152.00 NJ-XXXXXX-SUN-I-LBH-TREC
Grid supply (subsection (r)) rooftop $152 1 $152.00 NJ-XXXXXX-SUN-I-GSR-TREC
Net-metered non-residential rooftop and canopy $152 1 $152.00 NJ-XXXXXX-SUN-I-NMNRRC-TREC
Community Solar $152 0.85 $129.20 NJ-XXXXXX-SUN-I-CS-TREC
Grid supply (subsection (r)) ground mount $152 0.6 $91.20 NJ-XXXXXX-SUN-I-GSGM-TREC
Net-metered residential ground mount $152 0.6 $91.20 NJ-XXXXXX-SUN-I-NMRG-TREC
Net-metered residential rooftop and canopy $152 0.6 $91.20 NJ-XXXXXX-SUN-I-NMRRC-TREC
Net-metered non-residential ground mount $152 0.6 $91.20 NJ-XXXXXX-SUN-I-NMNRG-TREC
Floating  Solar Panels $152 0.6 $91.20 NJ-XXXXXX-SUN-I-FLT-TREC

The SREC-II price offered to SuSI-eligible solar facilities is determined by the project type and classification within the system’s assigned State Certification Number. A table of these prices can be found here: SREC-II Pricing Structure

There are no fees to participate in the Solar Incentive NJ programs.

TREC and ADI (SREC-II) eligible projects may generate credits for 15 years following the system’s Interconnection approval date. After 15 years, projects may be eligible for a NJ Class I REC. Although the program incentive values are periodically reset, the changes will not impact facilities with an existing certification or conditional registration. See Successor Solar Incentive Program Rule Adopted for more information.

  1. No, we are not able to view your generation entries in PJM GATS but you should receive an email from GATS Admin ([email protected]) confirming the entry. Please be advised it takes approximately 7 business days for GATS to issue certificates once you have entered a meter reading in their portal. If GATS has any questions or concerns with your entry they will email you directly, and it is your responsibility to address any outstanding issues.

  2. Once GATS creates a certificate, these will automatically be transferred to the program via the standing order established at the time of registration.
  3. Your certificate payments are then included within monthly invoices sent to the NJ EDCs for approval and paid within 6-8 weeks of month close. For example, if a payment is included in the December 2021 invoice, it would be paid by February 1, 2022, at the latest.

  4. You will receive an email notifying you that your certificate/s have been included in the month’s invoice submitted to the utilities, and you will receive an additional email notifying you that your payment has been initiated after the invoice has been approved by the utilities. These are notification emails and do not require any action on your part unless clearly stated.

The Solar Incentives NJ payment program remits payments over a 15 yr period whenever a certificate is created by your solar facility in the GATS database. While this in total may be comparable to your initial investment, it is not a lump sum payment awarded to you upon completion of your project.

Please see this resource page, “Possible reasons why you may not have received your payment” for more info. 

To review the bank details associated with your Solar Incentives NJ account, please follow the below steps:

  1. Log-in to https://solarincentivesnj.com/
  2. Select the “Payments” tab
  3. Click the “Update Bank Account Information” button
  4. Enter the associated App ID to review

Currently, certificate payments from the program list the description as “PNC paying agent”; however, the Program Administrator is investigating ways to make transactions more identifiable.

Payments prior to September 2023 included the below general details:

  • Company Name: INCLIMEINCNJ
  • Company ID: 1464444244
  • Description: “TREC PYMNT” or “SUSI PYMNT”
  • SEC Code: PPD
  • Receiver ID# or Individual ID #: This will match the unique Application ID# listed in the Solar Incentives NJ portal.

Ownership Changes

There would be no impact on eligibility if the property changes occupants or is unoccupied for a period of time. While net metering may require an active customer account in order to continue to receive credits for the energy being generated, RECs are purchased and retired for compliance purposes by the Electric Distribution Companies (EDCs) in New Jersey. However, if the system owner should change, this must be updated in GATS via the GATS Change in Ownership form and communicated to our team by email so that we can transfer the account accordingly. For additional information about how changes in occupancy might impact net metering, please contact your interconnecting utility directly.

Please see the Transfer Ownership Info from PJM GATS for an overview of their process. The seller and the buyer must complete the GATS System Ownership Transfer Request form. The buyer must also complete the Schedule A document indicating they are now self-managing the account.

Once both parties have completed the form, please email it to the GATS admin staff directly at [email protected] with our team copied ([email protected]).

The buyer will need to create an account in our portal. Once they establish log-in credentials and provide appropriate contact information, they will then receive an activation link by email which they must click. They do not need to click the “Register a Payment Application” button.  They should simply let us know once they’ve created an account and we will transfer the application once we receive confirmation from PJM GATS approving the transfer, all required transfer documents, and final payments to the previous owner have been completed.Please refer to the PJM GATS Generator Transfer Guide for more details on transferring assets within the GATS.

GATS & Interconnection Details

Each eligible solar facility is provided with a NJ Certification Number on its NJCEP approval letter. This must begin with NJ-XXXXXX-SUN-I where X’s are numeric, then is followed by the project type code, and either a “-TREC” or “SREC-II” suffix which determines the facility’s program. If you do not have this, please contact NJCEP directly by email at [email protected] or phone at 1-866-NJSMART (866-657-6278). View more information about eligible NJ Certification Numbers and their associated prices on the NJCEP web site. 

The Generation Attribute Tracking System (GATS) is a trading platform designed to meet the needs of buyers and sellers involved in the renewable energy certificate (REC) market – from homeowners and aggregators to states and other market participants. GATS tracks and records the characteristic data of generators registered in the system. The data is then converted into an electronic certificate, the REC. RECs are created for each megawatt-hour, or every 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity generated and then assigned a unique serial number. This serial number is the megawatt-hour’s unique fingerprint. Now, the certificate is eligible for sale. We rely on the GATS database to determine when you are eligible for a payment. Please see these instructions on how to create a PJM-GATS account and how to register a GATS generator as well as, how to report a meter reading. You may contact the GATS admin staff directly by phone at 1-877-750-4287 or via email at [email protected] if you have additional questions.   

  1. First, create an account with the PJM-EIS Generation Attribute Tracking System (GATS) at.https://www.pjm-eis.com/. To get started, navigate to GATS Sign In in top right and click “Not a Member? Register Here” (small text). See GATS Account Registration Solution Aid for more information, and please note that the attestation at the end of your submission will mention fees. These fees are not applicable to homeowners and small solar subscribers but please feel free to reach out to the GATS admin for confirmation.
  2. After you have set up an account, participants must register their solar facility as a generator with GATS using the system’s array details and NJ State Certification Number provided on their NJCEP approval letter. If you do not have your array details, please contact your installer. Once approved, a GATS Unit ID  (NONXXXXXX)  will be issued which can be entered in Step 4 of the TREC/ SREC-II payments application. More information on registering your solar facility can be found here: GATS Solution Aid – Registering a Generator.

Per the PJM GATS Operating Rules, standing orders offer a reoccurring, automatic transfer of Certificates for a given Generating Unit from the Account Holder’s Active Subaccount to the Active Subaccount held by a different Account Holder.

To ensure timely payments, the program administrator recommends that participants enter their meter readings to GATS monthly. Reporting your meter readings between the 15th and 20th of each month will ensure that any certificates created are captured in the following month’s invoicing cycle with the utilities. Meter readings entered after the 20th will be picked up in the next invoicing cycle. While system owners are required to report meter readings to GATS, it is up to participants to decide how often to report this information. Please keep in mind however that the program cannot issue timely payments unless system owners are regularly reporting meter readings in the GATS database. More information on reporting generation data can be found here:  GATS Solution Aid – Reporting Generation Data Manually.

  1. Log in to your PJM GATS account at https://www.pjm-eis.com/
  2. Navigate to Assets > Generation > Enter/View Generation
  3. On the new page, scroll down to the table in the bottom right corner labeled “Unprocessed Generation”
  4. Enter the facility’s kWh lifetime production meter reading in the “Read” field
  5. Click the “Save” button above the table to submit.
    1. System owners are required to report solar production as meter readings (i.e lifetime production for your system), not actual generation by month. As such, the GATS system will take the difference between the last meter reading and the most recent entry to calculate how much new generation a system has produced. Participants do not need to worry about which month the generation is assigned to. This will be done automatically by the GATS system.
    2. More information on reporting meter readings can be found here: GATS Solution Aid – Reporting Data Manually. If you have questions about how to do this, I suggest you contact the GATS admin staff directly by phone at 1-877-750-4287 or via email at [email protected].
    3. If you are unsure how to obtain your meter readings, I suggest you contact the installer for guidance as they have the most knowledge regarding the exact configuration of your system (i.e. equipment, layout, etc).
    4. Once we’ve received certificates associated with your facility, you will be able to track your payments by logging in at https://solarincentivesnj.com/ and clicking View Payment History under the Payments section.

All certificates created starting with the month your eligible solar facility received approval for interconnection from the local electric utility provider are able to be paid within the Solar Incentives NJ program. REC certificates however are not active indefinitely. Per program guidelines, retired certificates must be from “[t]he energy year in which the underlying energy was generated” or “[t]he energy year following the energy year in which the underlying energy was generated.” As such, certificates associated with generation from 12 months prior or more may not qualify for RPS compliance and will not be invoiced to the EDCs. For example, certificates associated with May 2020 generation (Energy Year 2020) stopped being invoiced to the EDCs on September 1, 2021 (Energy Year 2022).

Application

An account is needed so that you can manage your TREC/ SREC-II payments. Please see these instructions on how to create an account on solarincentivesnj.com. A payment application must be submitted for each facility with a TREC/ SREC-II certification number in order for the owner to receive incentive payments. This application will include your facility information, NJCEP certification number, the generator GATS Unit ID, and your banking information for the account you’d like to receive your payments. Please see the instructions on how to register a payment account on https://www.solarincentivesnj.com for more information. 

A voided check allows the program to verify the bank information entered in Step 3. Please be sure to upload a check that matches the information you entered on your Solar Incentives NJ payment application. If you do not have access to checks for this account, please answer No to the Step 3 Question: Do you have access to checks from this account?

A GATS Schedule A, signed by both parties (system owner and REC aggregator), is required for all applicants that list themselves as an Aggregator (Step 2 Question: ). A GATS Change in Ownership form, signed by both parties (original owner listed on the NJCEP application and new owner listed on the TREC payment application), is required for all projects that answer Yes to Step 2 Question: Has the owner of this facility changed since it received an NJCEP approval letter?. If you answered Yes to this question by mistake, please email the program administrator at [email protected].

Your payment application will be reviewed by our team to verify your system NJCEP certification and GATS registration as well as your banking information. If there are any questions we will reach out to you by email requesting more information as needed. Once outstanding issues have been resolved, we will register your application and you will receive an email confirmation. This email will also contain directions for submitting your first meter reading to PJM GATS.

Please see this resource page, “What are the different payment statuses and what do they mean?” for more info. 

Please see this resource page, “How to update your forgotten password” for more info.