Renewable Energy Certificates: RECs

Initiated by the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000; RECs, otherwise known as Renewable Energy Certificates, are available when you purchase a Solar Power system for your home or business. When purchasing a Solar Power system, you are also purchasing the rights to these credits. If you choose to sell them, you basically surrender your credits into the open trading market (similar to stocks or shares), and other companies will purchase these certificates to offset their own carbon footprint.

RECs - renewable energy currency
One REC is equivalent to one megawatt hour of electricity generation. A Renewable Energy Certificate can be traded for cash and the value of these certificates fluctuates according to market conditions. Basically, a REC is a form of renewable energy currency and through EnviroGroup, you can cash in your RECs with us to use as a point of sale discount!

Why would I sell my REC’s?
The REC’s that you receive with your system are not worth anything to you, unless you choose to sell them. The value of these REC’s may go up or down, and you can choose to sell the REC’s at any point. The value depends on how many REC’s are available, and how many are being purchased. If there are more REC’s available than the market requires, the value will inevitable drop. Also, cashing in the REC’s at the point of sale means you don’t have to worry about selling them, because EnviroGroup will complete all relevant paperwork on your behalf.

Why would I keep, or retire my REC’s?
Selling the REC’s means that you surrender your rights to these credits permanently. You might want to hold onto the REC’s, and see if the value goes up in the future. We can sign you up to receive newsletters from a REC’s trader, who will email you monthly and inform you of the value of the REC’s. You can then sell the REC’s through the trader when you decide the time is right (once again, just like a share portfolio). They will deposit the money into your nominated bank account and conduct all the paperwork.

There is also a strong argument for retiring the REC’s, which basically means that you keep them and never cash them in. When you sell the REC’s, companies or organisations can purchase your certificates from the open market, and that will contribute to their own ‘carbon offsets’. A growing number of people are deciding that they don’t want anyone else to ‘pollute on their behalf’, and EnviroGroup strongly encourages people to consider the impact of selling the REC’s for this reason.

For more information on how REC's are priced and the factors that influence this price, please read this article.

To determine the number of REC's your system is eligible for, please visit the certificate calculator.