Talk:Renewable Energy Certificate (United States)

message: What makes nuclear and fossil fuel cheaper than solar and wind power? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.113.104.47 (talk • contribs) 11:24, 1 September 2005  (UTC)
: The fossil fuel industry is entrenched and has a lot of susidies I believe (at least petroleum does). Nuclear power also receives a lot of subsidies. Also, their full cost isn't figured into their price. The cost of using an energy source which pollutes the atmosphere is cheap now, but must be paid for later. Should this be made clearer in the opening paragraphs of the article? -- Scott Teresi 16:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They are also tremendously concentrated sources of fuel whose generation of electricity can be pretty well relied upon, although Scott's answer is also quite correct. Kerberos 01:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Costs 

message: The page in the links section "the wooly world of green tags" attempts to show that Green Tags are a charade, whose only benefit is to enrich the organization selling them. I think it's healthy to have views from both sides, and wouldn't advocate removing this link, but it would nice if the aricle more clearly responded to this line of (flawed) argument. The criticism in this link in entirely baseless, because it ignores the fact that being able to sell Green Tags is what makes the renewable energy production possible. If it costs you $1 to produce a unit of energy renewably, and the market price for that energy is 50c, then the only way to ensure that energy gets produced is to sell 50c worth of Green Tags (or similar). Buyers of those Green Tags are not some suckers who's been tricked into handing over money for nothing, they are collectively ensuring that the renewable energy will be produced. Their 50c has the net effect that 1 unit of non-renewable energy is replaced by 1 unit of renewables. Arguing (as this critic does) that the wind turbine would still be spinning regardless of whether you bought a Green Tag is like arguing that your local McDonald's would still be making Cheeseburgers even if you didn't buy them -- true in a narrow sense, but misleading in its implications. If nobody buys Cheeseburgers, they will eventually stop being produced. If no-one buys Green Tags, or otherwise subsidizes renewable energy production, it will also stop being produced, because the market price is not sufficient to cover the costs of production. --spiralhighway 19:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So if McDonald's sells "cheeseburger credits," can someone who buys one of those credits say they bought a cheeseburger? It's one thing to say you support cheeseburgers by buying the credits, but quite wrong to say that you consume cheeseburgers when you don't. The "woolly world" writer also has a parody: "grocers greens tags". Kerberos 22:11, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: The test of RECs is what happens if everybody tries to buy them. Since a properly regulated REC market can only supply RECs by generating renewable electricity, and RECs cannot be double-sold, then a massive increase in demand for RECs would exceed their (currently limited) supply, driving up their price, thus making renewable electricity more profitable for companies supplying it. Utilities would respond by building more renewable plant to supply the demand for RECs. If everybody continued to demand RECs to cover all their electricity use, ultimately the result would be that no more non-renewable electricity would be generated - that would be the only way to provide enough RECs to go around. Thus RECs are far less "woolly" than some of the carbon offset schemes one reads about, which may or many not result in real tonnes of emission reduction. Also note that de-regulated utilities routinely allow individual suppliers of electricity and natural gas to compete for customers, even though every customer physically consumes the same mix of grid electricity or the mix from the gas distribution network. Individual suppliers are able to compete directly for customers even when distribution is physically shared as long as a reliable method exists to account for the production of each supplier and the stated desires of individual consumers to purchase from particular suppliers. --Teratornis (talk) 21:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, "it would be good for this article to describe the nuance."  I concur! One frequent question is: does the REC and SREC process result in MORE renewable energy going into the common power grid than RPS requires, or is it all moot?  If so, why would anyone pay MORE for renewable electricity?  However, in a growing number of markets, the cost fo rrenewable energy is lower than the utilities have been charging customers.  Thus, the customers of renewable energy are providing the common power grid with cleaner, greener power AND paying less for it because the renewable energy is actually cheaper than the default 'dirty' electricity from burning fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.MaynardClark (talk) 07:16, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to critical page 

message: I think Renewable Energy Certificates should be the primary title of the article rather than Green Tags. Renewable Energy Certificate is the preferred term used to describe them these days. Green-e, the main certifier calls them RECs, the new California laws use the term RECs, the Department of Energy uses the term RECs, the primary supplier, and the traders use the term RECs as well. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.180.224.183 (talk) 05:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No more discussions since 2007...And this is still tagged for discussion? See: http://greenpower.energy.gov/markets/ and merge Green Tags into the RECs one.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.218.109.139 (talk) 22:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

text: I haven't read the whole thing, and I'm not sure but it should be a general article about the concept, and it should be made into a summary-style article so that it gives summaries of Green certificates and Green tags also. —Pengo 09:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should we make Renewable Energy Certificates the article title? 

message: It would be useful to have an explanation of the two separate sources of demand for RECs-- namely the compliance market created by state Renewable Portfolio Standards and the voluntary purchase of RECs by individuals and businesses wishing to support renewable energy or reduce their carbon footprint.  This section could cover the eligibility requirements contained in most RPS policies, which explains why RECs in supply-constrained Massachusetts trade for $55 while they cost only $3 in Texas.
DB  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.26.156.252 (talk) 21:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compliance vs. Voluntary REC markets? 

message: The entire article omits any mention of the role of Federal tax credits and accelerated depreciation schedules in financing renewable energy (RE) projects.  For the garden variety utility scale wind farm, the sale of RECs provides less than one tenth of the additional revenue that a generator gets over and above the sale of the energy.  It is very hard to estimate the additional contribution that the REC subsidy provides.  The sources listed, particularly Gillenwater, document the finances very clearly.  I will add this clarification to the article in a few days if no one responds. 04:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The influence of Federal subsidies on renewable energy 

message: At the very least, the section labelled additionality has been copied word-for-word from 'Wave power: High-impact Strategies - What You Need to Know: Definitions ...' By Kevin Roebuck.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.55.164.254 (talk) 15:51, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Content lifted directly from publication 

message: The article probably needs a section on industry. Winds of change?: Deconstructing renewable energy certificates seems like a decent overview.
Arcadia Power seems to be doing a lot of national marketing in this area, and raised $3.5m not too long ago. Probably should have an article on the company, but I'm starting this section for notes first. II | (t - c) 00:31, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Existing industry and Arcadia Power marketing 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Renewable Energy Certificate (United States). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101216141817/http://green-e.org/getcert_re_obli_stan.shtml to http://www.green-e.org/getcert_re_obli_stan.shtml
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 01:25, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified