Platts launches US PPA price assessments for long-term solar contracts in PJM

Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, has launched daily Power Purchase Agreement price assessments for long-term solar contracts in two PJM hubs, effective May 8.

Platts first proposed the new assessments through a subscriber note published March 27, available here. Platts also announced in a subscriber note, available here, that it would launch these assessments on April 10.

The new assessments focus on PPA prices for physical and virtual long-term contracts for electricity power generated from solar projects in PJM AEP-Dayton and PJM West hubs. Platts defines long-term as PPAs for a tenure of 120 months or longer. On Jan. 1, the long-term contracts will roll forward to the following year. For example, on Jan. 1, 2027, Platts will begin assessing tenors from January 2028.

The published value reflects virtual PPAs, financially settled, as the basis. Platts normalizes all PPA data to this standard for assessment purposes.

The new assessments are as follows:

Platts previously proposed to launch a daily PPA assessment for long-term solar contracts in the PJM Dominion Hub, but decided not to launch the assessment based on market feedback.

The new price assessments for PJM AEP-Dayton and West hubs reflect PPA projects for solar technology, with an electricity generation capacity of at least 20 megawatts, and contracted on an as-generated basis with a timestamp of 1330 CT. These assessments are published in US dollars/mega-watt hour and follow the US holiday calendar.

Long-term solar assessments are priced as bundled products combining energy and renewable energy certificates (RECs).

Platts considers all bids, offers and trades for PPAs, including information displayed on REsurety's CleanTrade platform, and will normalize to these specifications for assessment purposes.

Platts will also publish monthly averages for the assessments listed above. The daily assessments are found on the alert page CLE0002, and the monthly averages are available on CLE0007.

Please send any questions or comments to powerpricing@spglobal.com and pricegroup@spglobal.com.

For written comments, please provide a clear indication if comments are not intended for publication by Platts for public viewing. Platts will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.