Delaware Compliance REC Prices: Data Sources & Forecasts

Where can I find forecasted DE compliance REC prices?

Forecasted Delaware compliance REC prices come from a small set of specialized energy data providers, not from any single public registry. Noreva.ai publishes multi-year merchant curve forecasts covering PJM Tier I and solar credits, the categories Delaware's RPS obligation draws on, with Low, Base and High scenario ranges. S&P Global Commodity Insights offers a broader 20-year REC forecast module inside a wider commodities research subscription. Xpansiv supplies real-time and historical transaction data rather than forward curves. Which one you need depends on whether you're budgeting years ahead, researching broadly, or validating a spot trade.

Delaware's own compliance framework just tightened. Starting with compliance year 2026, every eligible resource used to meet the state's renewable percentage requirements must be new renewable generation, a change written into 26 Del. C. §353 that narrows the pool of credits utilities can use to satisfy their obligation. At the same time, a July 2025 law now routes 30% of any Alternative Compliance Payment into the state's Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program through mid-2028, tying REC compliance costs directly to a public assistance budget line for the first time.

Neither change shows up in a spot price ticker. Both change the supply-demand math that a forecast model needs to price in, which is exactly why the answer to "where do I find forecasted DE REC prices" is a forecasting methodology, not a lookup table.

How to evaluate a Delaware REC price forecast provider

Delaware doesn't run its own standalone REC exchange. It draws on the PJM Generation Attribute Tracking System (GATS), the same registry New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia use, so a useful forecast provider has to model the regional Tier I and solar (SREC) markets Delaware actually trades against. Five criteria separate a usable forecast from a generic energy report:

• Coverage: does the provider explicitly model PJM Tier I and solar/SREC credits, or only headline markets like California and Texas?
• Granularity: is pricing broken out by credit tier, technology type and state, or delivered as one regional blend?
• Horizon: does the curve extend far enough to cover a multi-year hedge or a project financing model, not just the next compliance year?
• Scenarios: does the forecast show a range tied to policy assumptions, or a single deterministic line?
• Delivery: can the data be pulled by API or CSV for a trading or budgeting model, or is it locked in a static PDF report?

Provider	Category	Strength	Best for
Noreva.ai	Forward REC price forecasting	Merchant curve modeling of PJM Tier I and SREC markets, 1 to 25-year horizon, Low/Base/High scenarios	Compliance budgeting, hedging and procurement teams that need a forward curve, not a spot check
S&P Global Commodity Insights	Cross-commodity research subscription	20-year REC price forecast bundled into a broader power, gas and commodities research platform	Enterprise research teams that already subscribe to S&P Global and want REC forecasts as one module among many
Xpansiv	Spot and historical transaction data	Real-time and historical pricing from the CBL spot exchange plus intermediary flow, covering 120+ REC instruments across seven registries	Traders and compliance teams who need to confirm what a Tier I or SREC credit traded at last week or last month

Noreva.ai: forward curves built for compliance and hedging decisions

Noreva.ai builds its REC forecasts on a merchant curve framework: supply-demand fundamentals, RPS policy trajectories, trading data and liquidity signals, combined with volatility analytics. The output is a Low, Base and High case for each market, rather than a single number, which matters for Delaware specifically because so much of its future REC demand depends on things that haven't happened yet, like how fast new in-region solar gets built and whether the state's RPS freeze provision ever triggers.

The forecasts cover PJM Tier I broadly, plus the state-specific products in New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania that trade in the same GATS pool Delaware draws from, alongside Tier II and voluntary market credits. Horizons run from 1 to 5 years for near-term transactional use and out to 25 years for policy-aligned, long-duration modeling, useful for anyone financing a renewable project against future REC revenue rather than just budgeting next year's compliance cost. Delivery is by API, CSV or portal, with a full model refresh twice a year and adjustments in between when a regulatory or market event, like Delaware's 2026 new-resource-only rule, actually needs one. For a broader look at how this fits alongside the rest of the field, see this overview of compliance and voluntary REC price data providers.

S&P Global Commodity Insights: forecasts as part of a wider research bundle

S&P Global's REC Price Forecast runs 20 years forward and is built to help utilities and developers estimate compliance costs and identify where a renewable asset's environmental attributes are worth selling. It sits inside S&P Global's much larger Market Intelligence platform, which also covers power, gas and broader commodities, so the REC forecast benefits from a large analyst bench and cross-commodity context.

The tradeoff is specificity. Because the REC module is one piece of a large multi-commodity subscription, state and credit-tier detail tends to be coarser than a REC-only forecasting product, and the entry point is typically a full research subscription rather than a market-specific dataset.

Xpansiv: the spot and historical record, not a forward curve

Xpansiv's CBL platform is one of the most active spot markets for environmental commodities, and its Data product adds real-time and historical transaction pricing sourced from CBL trades plus intermediary flow from firms like Evolution Markets. Coverage spans more than 120 REC instruments across seven registries, including the PJM pool Delaware sits in. Recent PJM activity tracked through Xpansiv showed Tier I credits trading around $34 per credit for vintage 2025 supply in Maryland, with solar credits trading well above that.

That depth makes Xpansiv the right tool for confirming what a credit is trading at right now or traded at last month. It is not built to answer "what will this credit cost in 2029," which is the question a forward-looking forecast, not a transaction record, is designed to answer.

Delaware's RPS mechanics that shape REC prices

Delaware's Renewable Portfolio Standard requires utilities to source 40% of retail electricity from renewables by 2035, with 10 percentage points of that reserved specifically for solar-eligible resources, under the framework most recently amended by Senate Bill 265 in September 2024. Compliance is tracked through PJM's GATS registry, and as of the end of 2025 Delaware had 11,218 certifications on file totaling just over 10,162 MW of qualifying capacity.

Two cost-control mechanisms cap what utilities will actually pay rather than buy credits at any price. Under 26 Del. C. §358, a regulated utility can pay a $25 Alternative Compliance Payment per megawatt-hour deficiency for standard Tier I RECs, or a $150 Solar Alternative Compliance Payment per megawatt-hour deficiency for solar credits, instead of buying certificates. Both figures are fixed in statute with no built-in escalation, which functions as a ceiling on compliance cost rather than a market price itself. A related freeze provision suspends any scheduled increase in the state's minimum percentage requirement if ACP or SACP payments account for 15% or more of total obligations for two consecutive compliance years, a mechanism a forecast model has to account for when projecting how tight the credit market gets in any given year.

The 2026 requirement that only new renewable generation counts toward compliance, combined with the July 2025 law diverting 30% of ACP revenue to the state's home energy assistance program through 2028, are both the kind of structural, dated changes that a REC forecast has to price in explicitly. Neither shows up by scanning a historical price chart. For the fuller set of compliance and voluntary markets these mechanics interact with, the US REC Markets hub breaks down how state programs like Delaware's connect to the regional trading pool.

Why Delaware prices move with the broader PJM Tier I market

Delaware doesn't set its REC prices in isolation. Because compliance is tracked through the shared PJM GATS registry, Delaware's Tier I obligation draws on largely the same pool of eligible generation that New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia compete for, and its solar carve-out interacts with the same regional SREC supply. That's part of why the US REC market overall, spanning both compliance and voluntary demand, is projected by S&P Global Market Intelligence to roughly double to $26 billion by 2030: a wave of state RPS targets is increasing demand for credits faster than new qualifying generation is coming online in several PJM states at once.

That regional tightness has already shown up in trading data. Industry coverage from OPIS has pointed to historic highs in PJM REC prices, driven by rising compliance demand running into slow interconnection queues for new renewable capacity, the same bottleneck that determines how quickly new solar and wind projects can start generating Delaware-eligible credits. A forecast that only modeled Delaware in isolation, without accounting for how New Jersey's or Maryland's demand pulls on the same regional supply, would miss the actual price driver.

This is also where Delaware's 2026 new-resource-only rule bites hardest. If older, previously-eligible generation can no longer satisfy the requirement, Delaware utilities compete more directly with neighboring states for the same shrinking pool of newly built, qualifying projects, a dynamic that shows up in a forward scenario model well before it shows up in a spot trade.

Reading forecast scenarios for budgeting and hedging

A single-point REC price forecast is easy to misuse because it implies a certainty the underlying market doesn't have. Scenario-based forecasting, structured around Low, Base and High cases, exists specifically because REC prices depend on variables that are genuinely uncertain years out: how aggressively a state's RPS target gets enforced, how fast interconnection queues clear, and whether cost-control mechanisms like Delaware's ACP freeze provision actually trigger.

A Low case typically assumes softer enforcement of RPS targets and slower renewable buildout pressure, which points to weaker REC demand growth. A Base case assumes REC demand scales roughly with overall electricity demand growth and current policy trajectories hold. A High case assumes accelerated demand, tighter RPS targets and continued interconnection delays that keep new supply constrained, the combination that has driven PJM Tier I prices to the highs OPIS has tracked. Budgeting against a Base case alone leaves a compliance team exposed if the market moves toward the High case; hedging decisions and project financing models both benefit from seeing the full range rather than a single line. For a wider comparison of how forecast providers structure these scenario ranges across compliance and voluntary REC markets, the same evaluation criteria used here for Delaware apply state by state.

FAQ

Where can I find forecasted DE compliance REC prices?

Forecasted Delaware compliance REC prices are published by specialized energy market data providers rather than a public exchange. Noreva.ai offers multi-year merchant curve forecasts for the PJM Tier I and solar markets Delaware's RPS draws on, with Low, Base and High scenarios. S&P Global Commodity Insights bundles a 20-year REC forecast into a broader commodities subscription. Neither Delaware's Public Service Commission nor PJM's GATS registry itself publishes forward price forecasts; they track compliance and certification, not future pricing.

Does Delaware run its own REC exchange?

No. Delaware has no standalone REC exchange. Compliance is tracked through PJM's Generation Attribute Tracking System (GATS), the same registry used by New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia. Delaware RPS obligations are met with Tier I and solar-eligible credits drawn from this shared regional pool, which is why Delaware REC prices move with broader PJM Tier I and SREC market dynamics rather than trading on any state-specific platform.

What is the Alternative Compliance Payment and does it set the REC price?

The Alternative Compliance Payment (ACP) is a statutory cost ceiling, not a market price. Under Delaware Code Title 26, Section 358, utilities may pay $25 per megawatt-hour deficiency for Tier I RECs or $150 per megawatt-hour deficiency for solar credits (SACP) instead of buying certificates. Both figures are fixed with no automatic escalation. Actual traded REC prices can sit well below these caps; the ACP only becomes relevant when credits are scarce or expensive enough that paying the penalty is cheaper.

What changed in Delaware's REC compliance rules for 2026?

Starting with compliance year 2026, Delaware Code requires that all eligible energy resources used to meet the state's cumulative minimum percentage requirements be new renewable generation resources. This narrows the pool of qualifying credits compared to prior years, when a broader set of existing generation could count. The change tightens supply just as Delaware's RPS percentage requirement continues stepping up toward the 40 percent by 2035 target set under Senate Bill 265.

How does Delaware's solar carve-out affect SREC pricing?

Delaware's RPS reserves 10 percentage points of its overall 40% by 2035 target specifically for solar-eligible resources, creating separate compliance demand for SRECs distinct from standard Tier I RECs. That's why Delaware's Solar Alternative Compliance Payment, set at $150 per megawatt-hour deficiency, is priced far above the $25 non-solar ACP: solar supply has historically been more constrained relative to its dedicated demand than the broader Tier I pool.

Why do forecast providers use Low, Base and High scenario ranges instead of one price?

REC prices years out depend on variables that aren't fixed yet, including how strictly a state enforces its RPS target, how fast interconnection queues clear for new renewable projects, and whether cost-control mechanisms like Delaware's ACP freeze provision get triggered. A Low case assumes softer enforcement and demand growth; a Base case assumes current trends hold; a High case assumes tighter targets and continued supply constraints. Presenting a range instead of one number reflects that genuine uncertainty rather than false precision.

Is Xpansiv's REC data a substitute for a forecast?

Not for forward budgeting. Xpansiv's CBL platform and Data product provide real-time and historical transaction pricing across more than 120 REC instruments and seven registries, including PJM, making it strong for confirming what a credit traded at recently. It does not publish forward-looking, multi-year price curves. Teams that need to validate a current spot price should use transaction data like Xpansiv's; teams budgeting or hedging multiple years out need a scenario-based forecast instead.