SREC I vs. SREC II

RPS Solar Carve-Out and SREC I

On January 1, 2010, regulations were filed that established a requirement for a portion of the RPS Class I renewable energy requirement to come from solar PV energy. This carve-out supported over 650 megawatts of new solar PV energy facilities across the Commonwealth. The program stopped accepting new applications with the launch of the RPS Solar Carve-Out II Program in April 2014.

Key points:

• Eligible facilities generate SRECs for 40 calendar quarters, after which they generate Class I RECs.
• To generate one SREC, an eligible system must produce 1000 kWh of electricity.

RPS Solar Carve-Out II and SREC II

The second phase of the Solar Carve-Out program began with the promulgation of changes to the RPS Class I Regulation on April 25, 2014. The program was originally designed to continue supporting new solar PV installations until 1,600 MW of capacity was installed across the entire Commonwealth, but was extended as DOER was developing a successor incentive program. The SMART Program officially launched on November 26, 2018, marking the last day solar systems in Massachusetts were able to qualify for the SREC II Program.

Key points:

• Eligible facilities generate SREC-IIs for 40 calendar quarters from the time they are qualified, after which they generate Class I RECs.
• The amount of energy needed to generate one SREC-II is dependent on the system’s SREC factor, which is a multiplier ranging from 0.5 to 1.0. The factor is applied to the production in kWh to determine the number of SREC-IIs generated. A system needs to generate 1000 kWh after the factor is applied to generate one SREC-II.

For more information on the SREC programs, please visit DOER's Solar Carve-Out website.