Pennsylvania Tries to Improve SREC Market With New Legislation

A new bill was introduced in the Pennsylvania State Senate in August intending to improve the declining solar renewable energy credit (SREC) market in the Keystone State. A bill suggesting similar improvement had stalled in the House in 2011 (HB-1580), but Senator Dave Argall (R-29) is trying to kickstart the SREC market through legislation in the Senate. 

This new version of the  Senate Bill includes a:

-new timeline structure for the AEPS growth and decline from now until 2025, including an increase to the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard (AEPS) solar carve-out requirements from 2013-2015.

- change the alternative compliance payment (ACP) to $285/SREC for compliance in years 2013-2019 then reduce the ACP by 2% each subsequent reporting period

- change to eligibility requirements for renewable energy producers, to allow for solar thermal facilities

Notably, however, this version of the Bill no longer includes language to close the market to out-of-state systems, which has historically been what spares an overwhelmed SREC market in the past. So, now two questions remain: 

1) will this watered down senate bill garner the support it needs to become legislation and 

2) if it does, will it be able to improve the SREC market without closing out other states? 

You can read more about this in Anna Noucas' article Pennsylvania Senate Introduces Solar Bill to Effect Change in The Declining SREC Market.