Vintage
Vintage is a characteristic of every Peak Reduction Certificate (PRC). It specifies the compliance period (1 November to 31 March) in which the peak reduction capacity is made available for the first time. Peak reduction capacity is the capacity to reduce peak demand.
Eligible activities occurring between 1 April and 31 March have the same vintage. The year in which the first compliance period ends is used to set the vintage.
For example, certificates created from separate activities occurring on 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023 have a 2023 vintage. This is because both create capacity that is available for the first time in the compliance period 1 November 2022 to 31 March 2023. The vintage is 2023 because the compliance period ends in 2023.
A certificate of any vintage can be used to meet an obligation provided the certificate is active.
Forward creation and vintage
Some methods allow PRCs to be created over the life of the implementation. These PRCs can be created up front (forward created) and are assigned a vintage based on when the capacity is made available.
For example, an air conditioner with a life of 10 years is installed in November 2022. This implementation creates peak reduction capacity equivalent to 10 PRCs per year for 10 years. As a result, 100 PRCs will be generated from the implementation and can be created upfront.
The vintage of the PRCs generated by the implementation is determined based on when capacity is made available. Capacity is made available in each of the ten years of the life of the implementation. Therefore, when certificates are created up front they have vintages spread across the 10 year life of the implementation starting at 2023 and ending at 2032 as explained in the table below.
Distribution of certificates by vintage
Vintage | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 | 2031 | 2032 |
Vintage of created PRCs | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |