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Can state agency’s 15-year plan prop up price of solar certificates?
It probably will fail to stabilize a solar market in turmoil, but a state agency is expected to act today to fulfill a long-delayed legislative mandate to set the prices power suppliers pay to help promote the development of solar energy in New Jersey.
The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) is scheduled to adopt a 15-year timeframe for payments made by suppliers who fail to buy enough solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs) to comply with state mandates that a certain percentage of their electricity be produced by solar systems.
Ironically, the action, long pushed for by the solar sector in New Jersey, comes at a time when there is an oversupply of SRECs, which owners of solar systems earn for the electricity their panels produce. The result has been a deep drop in the price of the certificates, making the adoption of the compliance payments less important than it had been in the past. (Johnson, NJ Spotlight)