The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) recently
issued draft regulations for the second phase of its solar
renewable energy certificate program, known as "SREC
II." The aim of the SREC II program is to implement the
Commonwealth's goal to install a total of 1.6 GW of solar in
the state by the year 2020.
As DOER previously intimated, the proposed SREC II regulations
are designed to foster development of certain preferred market
segments, such as rooftops and "brownfield" projects,
over the "Managed Growth Sector," which includes
"greenfield" installations, where much of the recent
growth in large distributed solar installations has been seen in
Massachusetts. To do this, the proposed regulations create an
"SREC Factor" that acts as a deflator and reduces the
number of SRECs created from a MWh of generation. Preferred
projects will receive an SREC Factor of 1.0 (i.e., each MWh
produced will be counted toward SREC creation) and disfavored
projects,
