California Air Resources Board

The Voluntary Renewable Electricity (VRE) Program allows purchasers of eligible voluntary renewable electricity to request retirement of allowances on their behalf under the Cap-and-Trade Program. The VRE Program supports purchases of renewable electricity and renewable energy credits (RECs) that are not mandated by the Renewables Portfolio Standard and provides a mechanism for the recognition of voluntary purchases of renewable electricity or RECs in the Cap-and-Trade Program. The Cap-and-Trade Regulation specifies a percentage of vintage 2013-2020 allowances to be set aside each year into a Voluntary Renewable Electricity Reserve Account for the VRE Program.

CARB retires allowances each year for eligible voluntary renewable electricity generated in the previous year. The Cap-and-Trade Regulation places 0.5 percent of the annual allowance budget for the budget years in the first compliance period (2013-2014) and 0.25 percent for the budget years in the second and third compliance periods (2015-2020) into the Voluntary Renewable Electricity Reserve Account, from which allowances may be retired.

Application Forms for VRE Allowance Retirement

The information requested in the VRE Application Form and VRE Generator Form (available at the links below), including all supporting information, must be received by CARB no later than 5:00 p.m. on July 1 of the year following the year the voluntary renewable electricity was generated. Complete application instructions are in the VRE Application Form.

VRE Application Form

VRE Generator Form

General VRE Program Guidance is available in the VRE Program Guidance Document.

VRE Allowances Reserved Per Budget Year

VRE Allowance Retirements Through 2022

VRE Program Use by Year

VRE Program Participants

The number of VRE Program allowances retired on behalf of each applicant is available in this spreadsheet.