This week, solar advocates filed an emergency motion with the state Supreme Court to halt the utility-backed Amendment 1. The motion cites newly discovered evidence uncovered by the Miami Herald including statements made by a representative of a think tank associated with Amendment 1 regarding "an attempt to deceive voters into supporting restrictions on the expansion of solar by shrouding Amendment 1 as a pro-solar amendment." The Motion argues that, "[r]ecent events demonstrate conclusively that the ballot title and summary of the proposed constitutional amendment are in truth and in fact not compliant with constitutional and statutory requirements because they are affirmatively misleading and do not clearly and unambiguously set forth the chief purpose of the amendment." The solar advocates are requesting the Court to withdraw its prior advisory opinion and order new briefing of the issues raised by the newly discovered evidence. They request that following the briefing, the proposed constitutional amendment be stricken. The full text of the Emergency Motion is available on the NEM Website.

The Department issued an Order adopting rules for electric suppliers voluntary participation in a competitive electric supply website. The Department noted that the rules may be changed in the future as the result of its' experience and stakeholder experience with the site.

General provisions of the rules are as follows, with more specific requirements included for presentation of supplier and utility pricing information:

"A. Only suppliers licensed by the Department of Public Utilities (“Department”) can list electric supply products (“supply products”) on the Energy Switch Massachusetts Website (“Website”). Participation in the Website is voluntary.
B. Initially, the Website will list only fixed-priced supply products.
C. The Website will list supply products available to (1) residential electricity consumers, and (2) small commercial and industrial electricity consumers whose monthly demand does not exceed 25 kilowatts (“small C&I”).
D. Suppliers must offer the residential and small C&I supply products listed on the Website to all residential and small C&I electricity consumers, respectively, within an electric company’s service territory.
E. Only suppliers licensed by the Department to serve residential electricity consumers may list residential supply products.
F. Suppliers may list up to eight unique supply products for each customer class within each electric company’s service territory. To be deemed unique, supply products must differ in at least one of the following ways:
1. Length of contract term must differ by at least three months;
2. Percent of renewable energy content must differ by at least 25 percent; or
3. Inclusion of additional products and services.
G. The Website will update supply product information on a daily basis, at 12:00 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time).
H. Suppliers must honor all supply products listed on the Website (see Section VI.C., below, for the one exception to this rule).
I. The Department may rescind suppliers’ ability to list supply products on the Website for reasons that include, but are not limited to:
1. Failure to honor the supply product offerings listed on the Website; and
2. Excessive removal of supply products on an intra-day basis (see Section VI.C, below).
J. A supplier can include a size appropriate logo and a brief description of its company on the Website."

The full texts of the Order and Rules are available on the NEM Website.

Governor Christie recently signed Assembly Bill 12, which lowers the sales and use tax rate from 7% to 6.875% effective January 1, 2017. On this week's EDI stakeholder call, Board Staff explained that under N.J.S.A. 54:32B-14, “all sellers of energy or utility service shall include the tax imposed by the “Sales and Use Tax Act” within the purchase price of the tangible personal property or service.” Staff said that the rates and charges of the utilities and the TPSs include the sales and use tax, and they are required to reduce their rates and charges to reflect the lower sales and use tax. A Secretarial Letter to this effect will be issued shortly. Board Staff also proposed that the utilities include a brief bill message to advise customers of this change. The full text of Assembly Bill 12 is available on the NEM Website. The Secretarial Letter will be posted when made available electronically.

Staff of the NYPSC and NYSERDA filed a proposed Clean Energy Standard (CES) Phase 1 Implementation Plan to implement the Commission's August 1st CES Order. The CES includes a Renewable Energy Standard (RES) that consists of a Tier 1 obligation applicable to all load serving entities (LSEs) serving retail customers and a Tier 2 maintenance program to support "at risk facilities." The CES also includes a Zero Emissions Credit requirement that requires LSEs to purchase ZECs from NYSERDA in amounts proportionate to load served. The Proposed Plan discusses eligibility of RES resources, certification of eligible Tier 1 RES resources, Tier 1 RES long term procurement, LSE demonstration of compliance, and state compliance reporting requirements.

Regarding LSE demonstration of compliance, the proposed plan explains that,

"LSEs must demonstrate compliance with the CES’s RES Tier 1 and ZEC programs for each compliance period for which a RES and ZEC LSE compliance target is established. The RES compliance period is the twelve-month period beginning on January 1 and concluding on December 31. The ZEC compliance period is the twelve-month period beginning on April 1 and concluding on March 31.

For the RES and ZEC programs, calculation of LSE compliance obligations and reporting on compliance ZECs and Tier 1 RECs held by an LSE will be accomplished through NYGATS. LSEs are required to register an account in NYGATS in order to transact RECs and ZECs, receive communications, and generate compliance reports. In order for RECs and ZECs to be eligible for meeting compliance obligations they must be issued by and ultimately settled in NYGATS. NYGATS will generate reports on ZECs and Tier 1 RECs held in LSE NYGATS accounts that must be submitted to NYSERDA for demonstration of compliance. LSEs that elect to make ACPs to satisfy all or part of their RES obligation will be required to report those transactions as an attachment to the NYGATS RES Compliance Report. NYSERDA as the CES administrator shall have access to such LSE accounts for compliance verification purposes.

Compliance obligations of LSEs are determined differently for the RES Tier 1 and ZEC requirements. Because there are a defined number of ZECs generated in a compliance year, they are allocated to LSEs in proportion to their load assuming that appropriate payments have been made to NYSERDA. In contrast, an LSE’s Tier 1 RES obligation is determined by multiplying the LSE’s annual load times the annual Tier 1 percentage compliance target. The actual LSE compliance obligation for the RES and ZEC programs is calculated five months after the compliance period ends using the load calculated from data reported in NYGATS for the compliance period."

Comments are due January 3, 2017. The full texts of the Proposed Plan and Notice Requesting Comments are available on the NEM Website.

As directed by the Commission in the August Clean Energy Standard Order, NYSERDA has made a filing regarding the Renewable Energy Standard 2017 compliance period, specifically including the REC price, the estimated quantity of RECs that NYSERDA will offer for sale in the 2017 compliance period, a per MWh ACP price for the 2017 compliance period and a firm schedule of dates for the annual and potential supplemental solicitations for the 2017 procurement period.

As per NYSERDA's filing, the quantity of 2017 Tier 1 RECs to be offered for sale by NYSERDA will be 56,142. The 2017 Tier 1 REC price will be $21.16/MWh, and the 2017 ACP price will be $23.28/MWh.

The full text of NYSERDA's Filing is available on the NEM Website.