Learning to sell Solar Renewable Energy Credits (ie saving money on the net cost of solar PV array)

I'm learning so bear with me. If you generate power in WV there are companies out there who are compelled by law to reduce their carbon footprint by producing a certain quantity of renewable energy credits per year. The solar variety are called Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SRECs). Dependng on the state there are fines per SREC not produced. These companies (eg Starbucks does it) must buy SREC's (or create them) at a lower price than the fine.

People or businesses with a solar PV array on the roof have no use for SREC's because they are nothing but credit (ie little gold stars by your name) for having reduced your footprint. It makes sense for large dirty non-compliant companies to pay you and me to reduce the total footprint as long as it is cheaper for them to meet there requirements (or pay the fines) by paying us to do it for them, this opportunity should persist.

There are brokers who approach solar PV system owners and try to sign them up for a 10 year contract without disclosing the accounting definitions used to calculate your net price. For example, they may offer to pay you 50% of their SREC 'sales price' but the one I spoke with wouldn't define sales price, leading me to conclude that their definition can be padded with fees or overhead as they please. It would be true, legally, to look at their agreement.

So I called the power company and they referred me to this hitherto unknown entity called PJM, who operates the Generation Attribute Tracking System. Very helpful folks there are holding my hand through a process that promises to set up Blackwater Overlook as a registered power plant capable of selling its Renewable Energy Credits to the "needy" (ie the dirty who must pay to be clean).

To do this the PV generator has to have a state certification number. What? WV does not even issue such certifications. However! PA and DC apparently allow registration of PV generators that are located in WV. Hmmm. OK I applied for certification. Once gotten I then register the generator in the PJM GATS system as a producer. From there I believe the gig is similarly primitive to craigslist, where I would post Megawatt-Hours (Mwh) (of which I should produce between 2 and 4 per year) for sale. These little bundles of joy go for a few hundred dollars each, depending on the market/legislative forces at work.

It is facinating so far, and I figure that IF it works, the SRECs revenue will just about pay for my time to figure out how to sell the SRECs. Kidding aside, the real opportunity is to add this to the equation for how much it really costs after taxes and SREC liquidation to own a PV array in Davis. The true net cost of the system is what we can compare to the savings in electrical bills. Although the systems and even the need for an SREC trading marketplace will change, it would appear that the Riverwalk Homeowners association could handle much of the administivia for getting the equipped Riverwalk residences in a position to sell off their SRECs.