Renewable Energy Certificates (REC)

In Canada & the U.S. EACs are called RECs, and handled by regional registries.

In Canada and most of the United States, Energy Attribute Certificates are known legally and colloquially as "Renewable Energy Certificates", or sometimes "Renewable Energy Credits".

Throughout these states and provinces, regional power distribution or management agencies are responsible for defining these standards and issuing certificates. This means that there is no single definition of a “Renewable Energy Certificate” but rather a patchwork of similar but not identical definitions based on the particular region.

A survey of all these registries, "REC Definitions and Tracking Mechanisms Used by State RPS Programs" (Jan Hamrin, 2014) identified a general set of properties/ attributes that are common to nearly all the registries' databases (reproduced below). Properties about the individual certificate are displayed in the left column and properties of the power generator ('static data') are displayed in the right column.

Certificate DataStatic Data

Certificate Type

State or Province

Tracking System ID

Country

Project Type

NERC Region

Project Name

eGrid Sub-Region

Certificate Vintage

Commenced Operation Date

Certificate Serial Numbers

Fuel Type/Energy Source

Quantity of Certificates

Nameplate Capacity

Meter Data From:

Reporting Entity Type

Meter Data To:

Reporting Entity Contact Company or Organization

Name

Utility to Which Facility is Interconnected

Certificate Creation Date

Repowered Indicator (Y/N)

Utility to which project is connected

Repowered Amount

Repower Date (required if repowered indicator = Y)

Qualified Facility (Y/N)

REC Registries

In this North American system, issuing, verifying, and redeeming these certificates is handled by regional agencies empowered by local power regulators or states. Because the power grid is very complex and sprawling, the regional distribution of power regulators and other state agencies in charge of power is also quite complicated and sprawling.

A few states have a single registry that is affiliated with a state-wide power reliability or system operator (e.g. Texas with ERCOT, North Carolina with NC-RETS, New York with NYSERDA, etc.), but a larger number of states share a registry with neighboring states, (e.g. the Western states with WREGIS). The table below does an admirable job of trying to make sense of the situation (again from Jan Hamrin, 2014). Note that "RPS" programs refer to "Renewable Portfolio Standards".

Registry

Mandatory state RPS programs using the tracking systems

Voluntary renewable energy goal programs using the tracking systems

Canadian provinces using the tracking systems

TX

IA, IL, MN, MT, OH, WI

ND, SD

MB, ON

MI

IL, KS, MO, NC, PR

CT, MA, ME, NH, RI

NC

NY

NV

DC, DE, IL, MD, NJ, OH, PA

WA, WV

CA, CO, MT, NM, OR, WA

UT

AB, BC

None

AZ, HI

OK, IN

Jasmine's backend services, and the "Bridge", will interface with these registries to bring the certificates on-chain, and then properly retire them with the appropriate registry when the certificate is claimed and redeemed.

If you live in one of these regions, and you have a solar panel connected to the grid on your home, you can be collecting and selling your RECs! You can get help signing up from our community on our Discord!

RECs as Financial Assets

RECs are regulated as "non-finacial commodities." That's the same category as metals and agricultural commodities. See this journal article or this non-profit report for a more in-depth analysis.

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