Inter-state protectionism in SREC markets threatened

[silverhorsefarm]

http://wamu.org/news/11/04/22/dcs_solar_industry_seeks_protection_from_council.php

[Sunking]

This is stupid. He cannot afford to pay his electric or gas bill, nor can he afford to pay for the solar and wants to spend my money for his comfort. Get a frickin job and earn it.

[russ]

That was a rather poor case to put forward for sure. Even with the SRECs no one is going to loan him the money.

[Naptown]

This has been a problem for most states that allow SREC's to be imported.
Most of DC's problems have come from a large Midwest utility that dumped a huge amount of Srecs into the market effectively killing the market. I know that happened with thermal SRECs there. I believe Maryland will be closing their borders to out of state SRECs come the first of the year.

[russ]

Nobody has been interested yet but as noted - restricting interstate commerce? Not within a state's powers.

[Naptown]

Nobody has been interested yet but as noted - restricting interstate commerce? Not within a state's powers.

Good question one for the lawyers

[Sunking]

The whole SREC trading is a PONZY scam. You are trading for basically nothing other than air.

[Pickles]

Nobody has been interested yet but as noted - restricting interstate commerce? Not within a state's powers.

They and 26 other states that have REC or SREC programs already have restrictions on where those RECs or SRECs can come from. Even now DC requires that the SRECs come from PJM, which for example, prevents a system in CT from selling their SRECs in DC while someone in North Carolina can. The legal precedent is pretty clear on this actually, since an SREC or REC is, as someone pointed out, a construct, it can be defined however the state wants. If DC defines a "DC SREC" as a certificate created by a solar system physically located in DC then that is what it is. Anyone in any state can buy, sell, and move that "DC SREC" across state lines without interference, which is what we call "interstate commerce". The definition of the thing being bought and sold is not "interstate commerce", that would preclude VT from calling their maple syrup "VT Maple Syrup" for example!

[russ]

If you read the article it points out that this has not become a problem for the utilities as yet so no attention is being paid to it. The electricity involved moves all over the place within area grids - interstate.

Later - we will see when parties with the big bucks become interested.

The maple syrup example is a different thing altogether.

From www.answers.com, 'In the U.S., any commercial transaction or traffic that crosses state boundaries or that involves more than one state.'

Russ