Small Scale Power Purchase Agreements - Anyone?

Hi Patrick -  I've have one client who has done large scale purchase agreements, but nothing small.  I did find this information on PSE's website, there's a ton of information at the bottom of the page.  PSE | Distributed renewables   Would be great to find out what you learn.

Patrick, I looked a couple years ago at this for NBBJ and talked to LevelTen energy – a PPA company based in Seattle. Even for our full office portfolio we were too small a player by several orders of magnitude to enter into the game. There are some PPAs that bring together multiple investors, but the message I got was that the solar developers want PPA agreements on a larger scale than what our energy needs offer. Perhaps a consortium like the LFRT could band together, but a PPA is a legal contract with financial risk attached, so getting that sort of agreement might be tough. Unfortunately that left me seeing relatively few options for renewable power purchase for our electricity. There are RECs, which I find to be of such low quality and lacking in additionality that I can’t recommend them and utility programs that we sometimes can’t access due to lease structures. We could consider trying to self-develop or partner with a small scale community solar group – that has interest but is a high effort. I had a promising conversation with Watt Carbon in June that I need to follow up on – they appear to be aggregating buyers that are too small into a marketplace. But they don’t have the reward potential of a PPA – a good PPA can be a positive financial investment for a company, not just a cost/liability. These other options are all cost additive. Peter Alspach, PE Principal | Director of Design Performance NBBJ 223 Yale Avenue North SEATTLE WA 98109 Direct: 206.621.2279 Mobile: 206.816.4902 nbbj.com NBBJ is a certified CarbonNeutral® company From: Patrick

For the Path To Zero Carbon I did some research on this. RMI suggested: * “The amount of energy you’re looking for is below what is typical for a VPPA. These contracts are typically negotiated directly with a project developer for projects of a size of 20 MW or more, and–given the transaction costs of negotiating each contract–developers are keen to keep the number of buyers for any individual project quite small. (Note: A 20 MW project might generate 50,000 MWh per year). * It’s not unheard of, however, for smaller buyers to join up with others to collectively negotiate a VPPA agreement. An example that might be relevant is MIT’s PPA on which they partnered with both Boston Medical Center and Post Office Square Redevelopment Corporation. Notably, the Post Office Square group took a very small piece of the overall 60 MW agreement. * Depending on whom your clients are, you might consider a few different avenues. The Renewable Energy Buyer’s Alliance (REBA) is a membership organization that may be able to put your clients in contact with other interested buyers. Notably, there are a number of large tech firms based in Washington State that are quite active in the renewable energy market. If you work with any city governments, my team at RMI might be able to offer some support or introductions. Finally, there are a number of companies that act as middlemen / brokers for this space. A few that come to mind are LevelTen which operates an online platform, 3Degrees, Customer First Renewables, and Schneider Electric; all of these entities might be able to put your clients in touch with other buyers.” RMI also suggests that WA State also doesn’t have a wholesale market for individual buyers so it’s difficult to sell or purchase here. OR is better for this from what I’ve heard. (Note: WA has byzantine utility laws, no RTO/ISO, and is not at all like California or most of the rest of the country in terms of electricity markets.) We have not been able to help broker a VPPA for any of our clients, but some of our clients use them. Some higher ed institutions have an off-site solar field that they own or helped create and allocate power to campus or individual buildings when those buildings pay for the solar such that they are not double counted. I’ve heard this referred to as VPPA but do not know if it actually is or not. For the Washington State Energy Code that I worked on, which allows VPPA for part of the energy compliance, the most likely path would be that a jurisdiction or utility aggregates buyers to create a minimum purchase. Or perhaps a community solar project, which is functionally very similar. Also, some utilities offer ‘green power’ for an additional fee which may or may not be green and are not a VPPA. This is not my area of expertise, so take all of the above with a few grains of salt. -Kjell From: Laura Soma