New Jersey Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) Program
The Clean Energy Program of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities selected the Clean Power Markets team in January 2004 to build and administer the tradable renewable energy certificate program for solar energy in the State. This program tracks the production of all solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the state for the purpose of issuing solar renewable energy certificates (SRECs). Solar system owners or their agents' establish an electronic account on the SREC website, srec.njcleanenergy.com/. Through monthly meter readings (for systems > 10 kilowatts) or engineering estimates (for systems <10 kilowatts), electricity production is tracked. When 1000 kilowatt-hours (kWh), or 1 megawatt-hour (MWh), are produced, an SREC is issued and deposited into the account. The SRECs can then be sold to New Jersey utilities to meet their renewable portfolio standard requirement for solar, or to any other entity that wants to support solar energy production.
The New Jersey renewable portfolio standard has a specific requirement that electric suppliers deliver a certain percentage of electricity from solar PV systems. Purchasing SRECs meets this requirement. All New Jersey electric suppliers must use the New Jersey SREC Program to demonstrate their compliance with this requirement. As the electric suppliers accumulate SRECs for each year, they "retire" the SRECs to meet their purchase requirement.