Delaware Code Title 26 Sec. 353 – Renewable energy portfolio standards administration
(a) The Delaware Public Service Commission shall determine, verify, and assure compliance with renewable energy portfolio standards established pursuant to this subchapter that apply to all retail electricity sales in the State, except retail electricity sales of municipal electric companies. Any rural electric cooperative that is opted-out of Commission regulation by its membership pursuant to § 223 of this title shall, for all purposes of administering and applying the provisions of this subchapter, be treated as a municipal electric company during any period of time that the rural electric cooperative is exempt from Commission regulation.
Terms Used In Delaware Code Title 26 Sec. 353
- Alternative compliance payment: means a payment of a certain dollar amount per megawatt hour, which a retail electricity supplier or municipal electric company may submit in lieu of supplying the minimum percentage from Eligible Energy Resources required under Schedule I in § 354 of this title. See Delaware Code Title 26 Sec. 352
- Commission: means the Delaware Public Service Commission. See Delaware Code Title 26 Sec. 352
- DNREC: means Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. See Delaware Code Title 26 Sec. 352
- Municipal electric company: means a public corporation created by contract between 2 or more municipalities pursuant to provisions of Chapter 13 of Title 22 and the electric utilities that are municipally owned within the State of Delaware. See Delaware Code Title 26 Sec. 352
- Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
- Qualified fuel cell provider: means an entity that:
- Qualified fuel cell provider project: means a fuel cell power generation project located in Delaware owned and/or operated by a qualified fuel cell provider under a tariff approved by the Commission pursuant to § 364(d) of this title. See Delaware Code Title 26 Sec. 352
- RPS: means the percentage of electricity sales at retail in the state that is to be derived from eligible energy resources. See Delaware Code Title 26 Sec. 352
- Rural electric cooperative: means a nonstock, nonprofit, membership corporation organized pursuant to the federal Rural Electrification Act of 1936 [7 U. See Delaware Code Title 26 Sec. 352
- State: means the State of Delaware; and when applied to different parts of the United States, it includes the District of Columbia and the several territories and possessions of the United States. See Delaware Code Title 1 Sec. 302
- Year: means a calendar year, and is equivalent to the words "year of our Lord. See Delaware Code Title 1 Sec. 302
(b) The Commission shall implement renewable energy portfolio standards pursuant to this subchapter that apply to all retail electricity sales in the state except sales to any industrial customer with a peak demand in excess of 1,500 kilowatts.
(c) The Commission shall develop rules to transition the REC and SREC procurement responsibility set forth in § 354(e) of this title. The purpose of such rules shall be:
(1) To adequately protect electric suppliers that entered into contracts to provide RECs and SRECs to retail electric customers prior to the transition of REC and SREC procurement responsibility under § 354(e) of this title;
(2) To adequately protect against overpayment of the cost of RPS obligations for customers of electric suppliers who are parties to supply contracts that were entered into prior to the transition of REC and SREC procurement responsibility under § 354(e) of this title; and
(3) To adequately protect commission-regulated electric suppliers and customers thereof from having to incur alternative compliance payments or other costs that would have been avoided but for the failure of an electric supplier to continue retiring RECs or SRECs associated with its retail supply contracts existing at the time of the transition of REC and SREC procurement responsibility under § 354(e) of this title. To the extent such protection involves a temporary reduction to the RPS obligation or to the price of an alternative compliance payment required of a commission-regulated electric supplier made necessary by the failure described above, the Commission is authorized to make the necessary temporary reductions notwithstanding the RPS obligations otherwise required by this chapter.
(d) The Commission shall develop procedures for tracking the generation output of qualified fuel cell provider projects such that energy produced by such projects shall fulfill the commission-regulated electric company’s state- mandated REC and SREC requirements set forth in § 354 of this title as follows:
(1) Fulfillment of the equivalent of 1 REC for each megawatt-hour of energy produced by a qualified fuel cell provider project.
a. The commission-regulated electric company can use energy output produced by a qualified fuel cell provider project to fulfill a portion of SREC requirements at a ratio of 6MWH of RECs per 1MWH of SRECs. The commission-regulated electric company may utilize a portion of energy output from a qualified fuel cell provider project in any given year to fulfill no more than 30% of the SREC requirements unless:
1. Due to lack of SREC availability in the market, the alternative would be to incur alternative compliance payments; or
2. The SREC obligations set forth in Schedule I of § 354 of this title are increased, and then only to the extent necessary to fulfill the increased SREC obligations.
b. The Secretary of DNREC may, after coordination with the Commission and a commission-regulated electric company, adjust the requirements of this section including permitting a commission-regulated electric company participating in a commission-approved project to exceed the percentages set forth in this section.
c. The right of a commission-regulated electric company to use energy output produced by a qualified fuel cell provider project to fulfill its REC and SREC requirements in accordance with this section shall not expire until actually applied to fulfill such requirements.
(2) The commission-regulated electric company has the ability to apply the REC and SREC equivalent fulfillment benefits described in this section for 20MW in addition to the 30MW set forth in § 364 of this title for future customer sited applications of qualified fuel cell provider fuel cells. Separate tariff provisions must first be approved by the Commission for such installations above the original 30MW.