NJ Renewable Energy Programs

Client: New Jersey Board of Public Utilities

Challenge:

New Jersey has one of the leading renewable energy portfolio standards in the United States, calling for the installation of over 2,000 MW of solar, 3,200 MW of wind, and 900 MW of biomass by 2020.  New Jersey’s Clean Energy Program was created by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities in order to support progress towards the renewable portfolio goals and to help reduce energy use by 20% by 2020, which is the overarching target for the State of New Jersey’s Energy Master Plan.  The New Jersey Office of Clean Energy (OCE) – on behalf of the Board of Public Utilities – oversees an annual budget of more than $250 million dedicated towards reaching these admirable and aggressive goals. The OCE understands the importance of providing outstanding support to market participants – backed by program operations with a high level of transparency and integrity.  In parallel, a key policy objective is to transform markets so that government incentives can be reduced over time and be replaced by market mechanisms.

Solution: 

The OCE hired a team of partners including VEIC to design, manage, and implement the customer-sited renewable energy programs. VEIC’s role has been to provide expert policy and program design advice, to design incentives that foster sustained orderly market development, to publish and develop transparent protocols on project approval and verification, and to manage the daily workflow associated with application and incentive processing. With respect to the broader goal of market development and transformation, VEIC has played a major role in outreach and education to potential renewable energy buyers, in training and educating installers on best practices, in providing critical market data and information services, and supporting the OCE in policy development.  VEIC has also been active in helping transition the New Jersey solar market from rebates to market based solar renewable energy credits (SREC’s).  VEIC’s staff regularly educates market participants on the operation of SREC markets. We have also worked on developing and implementing performance based small wind incentives, integrating market activity for solar and energy efficiency, the development of solar hot water incentives, combined heat and power incentives and the development of biomass projects.

Results:

• With nearly 100 MW of installed capacity, New Jersey ranks #2 in the US with respect to installed solar, and the State is ranked #7 in the world.
• The VEIC team has processed over 4,000 solar applications representing over $150m in rebates - including successfully managing a doubling in applications per year.  At the same time, our team provides exceptional customer/contractor service and has reduced application approval times from over 1.5 years to less than 30 days.
• VEIC has processed applications representing more than 15MW of SREC driven, large renewable projects.
• New Jersey has also seen growth in small wind and biomass projects, with almost 4 MW of capacity installed since 2007.