The incentives offered by Arizona’s electric utilities have spurred their customers to install photovoltaic systems, which helps the companies comply with a mandate for renewable energy distribution. The incentives are renewable energy certificates, which are purchased by utilities from customers producing energy. But the RECs may soon become unnecessary – at least for the residential market – because the cost of producing PV energy is sinking towards parity with the cost for grid power.

This rapidly approaching reality is raising a tricky question: how will utilities demonstrate their compliance with the state’s renewable energy mandate without RECs? Keep reading →