At Solar Offset, we want you to understand how much your carbon offsets are actually worth. After all, they are yours!
It would be wonderfully simple if we could simply give you a fixed $ value. But because the value of carbon offset credits is set by the market, it floats (the same way you see changes in the price of electricity or gasoline, for example). The only way we could offer a fixed $ value, therefore, would be to offer a very low value.
So, as we don't want to do that, bear with us as we explain the basics of how your carbon offsets will be priced.
The value of your Offset Credits is likely to closely follow what is known in Alberta as the “Fund Credit” price. This is the price that regulated industrial facilities pay to the government for every tonne of greenhouse gas emissions that they weren't allowed to emit. As an Offset Credit is an alternative to a Fund Credit, it naturally follows that the price of these two Credit types is linked. And as there is no limit to the number of Fund Credits an industrial facility can buy, the only reason they typically buy Offset Credits is because they can get them for a discount.
The current Fund Credit price is set at $50/tonne and historically offsets have traded for around 75-95% of a Fund Credit price, making the current value somewhere in the region of $37.5-47.5 per credit.
However, the Federal Government has announced it will increase the value of carbon by $15/year until it hits $170 by 2030 (see here). So we are expecting that the value of carbon will increase in the coming years.
This is the core reason that Solar Offset offers you a % of the sales price, not a fixed price. We believe this is the only fair way to reward you, the system owner, for your decision to "go solar" (or to "get windy"?) Because this way, when the price of carbon rises, you get paid more.
Check out how much you could make using our calculator, and sign up here.