On Wednesday, March 10th, Solarize Philly held a webinar on managing Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs) and monitoring solar PV systems. Solarize Philly was joined by Ron Celentano from Celentano Energy Services and Niamh McCrohan from Solar States. 

A Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) is an attribute that represents 1,000 kWh of electricity generated by solar. The Pennsylvania Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act of 2004 (AEPS) requires utilities and electricity suppliers to demonstrate that 0.5% of the electricity they supply is generated by solar. Rather than purchasing solar energy directly, they have the option to purchase SRECs from solar projects in Pennsylvania to demonstrate their compliance with this requirement. Celentano discussed how to sell SRECs to energy brokers or aggregators and what the process entails.

Once a solar PV system is installed, owners are able to monitor the generation using systems such as SolarEdge or Enphase. These monitoring systems track how much energy is generated by the solar PV system on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis. These monitoring systems also alert the homeowner and solar installer if there are any problems with the system. McCrohan showed how to use both interfaces and how different features can be used to monitor the system.

To learn more about SREC trading and how to use and understand monitoring systems, you can watch the webinar below. For any questions, please email us at solarize@philaenergy.org.