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As expected, the prices of the 2017 vintage New Jersey SRECs are starting to converge with the prices of the 2018 vintages. Prices for 2017 were trading in the $220 to $230 range in recent weeks and have moved down to the $170 level today. After some up and down movement in the next few months they will be trading at a $5 discount to the 2018s which are now at $175.
The sudden move happened because there was an orderly expiration of the July delivery of the 2017 vintage SREC futures contract on Intercontinental Exchange. There was over 230,000 contracts in open interest in the July 2017 contract which is close to 10% of the whole years SREC obligation by all energy suppliers. Futures contracts can exhibit volatility in the last few trading days going into expiration if there is an imbalance of physical to deliver against the futures contract. For this reason the prices were held up for a longer period of time until the contract expired. The lack of volatility in this expiration means that all sellers had procured enough SRECs to satisfy delivery in the GATs by Monday, July, 31st.
The 2017 energy year is expected to be oversupplied by 7%. In the 2018 energy year it is expected that the installed solar in the whole state will oversupply the energy companies mandated compliance by about 14%. This is the reason why the 2018 vintage is trading at a discount to the 2017 prices last year. Of course the prices will move during the year as we see how much new solar is installed.
As always, we stress to our solar owners to sell consistently during the year to get an average price and not hold.
DISCLAIMER: This article contains forward looking statements. Actual market action could differ materially from those anticipated. Sellers of SRECs should do their own research. Actual SREC production may differ significantly from those estimates. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement.