What are SRECs (Solar Renewable Energy Certificates)?

• SRECs are a state-supported incentive program and an additional way to get paid for going solar

• In order to get SRECs so you can sell them, most owners work with an SREC aggregator (that’s us)

• SRECs provide proof (in the form of a digital “certificate”) of how much renewable energy your system makes

• These SRECs are particularly valuable in your state because of its RPS law

SRECs allow producers of solar energy to trade the value of the "renewableness" of their energy separate from the electricity.

Here is the most common definition of an SREC: it’s a promise or a guarantee that the electricity you’re using came from a renewable resource. But while SRECs are intangible – a critical concept – they are also a commodity which can be bought and sold like a physical good. An “SREC” is an official certificate of authentication for renewable energy that has value in a market.

In fact, when your solar system generates electricity, that electricity is added to the “grid,” at which point differentiating it from energy that comes from other sources (like coal or natural gas) is impossible. An SREC is a document that serves as a proof of record that the energy indeed came from the renewable generation.

1 megawatt-hour (1,000 kilowatt-hours) of electricity produced by a solar energy system represents one SREC that enters the market. Rule of thumb: a 10kW system produces about 12 SRECs on annual basis.

We all agree that renewable energy has a unique value when compared to non-renewable energy. How is the value of the "renewableness" of the energy a solar system makes accounted for? SRECs! In other words, what if you could strip away the "renewableness" from the energy your solar system makes? You'd end up with undifferentiated energy/electricity and SRECs. SRECs provide a tried-and-true way to represent the valuable attribute of renewable energy in an exacting way. 1 MWh = 1 REC.