Voluntary
Shareholder mandates, independent pursuit of social responsibility by public companies, the concerned public consumer and government agencies rank high on the list of entities who have decided to purchase renewable energy. Although currently separate from compliance markets voluntary RECs can be obtained through renewable energy brokers, green marketers or through various retail programs established by utilities and socially conscious companies. When contemplating the purchase of voluntary RECs, it is important to seek out those that have been certified by companies like Green-E which verify the resource generating the REC and insure it will not be double-counted. Tradable Renewable Credits are the result of this certification process. TRCs have markets regionally and nationally in for example; wind, biomass and solar.