Four things you can do with a certificate
A homeowner can keep the SRECs and do nothing with them, hold them in hope of a higher future price, try to sell them directly to an energy supplier, or assign them to an SREC aggregator to sell as part of an SREC group transaction.
SRECs have a life of 3 years. That puts a boundary on the holding strategy: a certificate you sit on indefinitely eventually stops being worth anything, so waiting for a better price is a timed bet rather than an open-ended one.
Selling directly to an energy supplier is possible but it is work, and it means finding a counterparty and handling the transaction yourself for a modest number of certificates each year.
Most homeowners end up with an aggregator for that reason. Aggregators purchase SRECs from system owners to bundle and sell on, and they charge a fee for handling registration and sale. That fee is the price of not doing it yourself, and it is worth knowing what it is.
How to compare aggregator offers
Aggregators may offer annual payments similar to an annuity, or upfront payments for several years worth of certificates. Those are genuinely different products and comparing them on the headline number will mislead you.
An upfront payment for multiple years transfers the price risk to the buyer, which is worth something to you, and they will price that in. An annual arrangement keeps you exposed to the market in both directions. Neither is automatically better; the question is which risk you would rather hold.
Ask each aggregator what fee they take and how it is expressed, how long the agreement runs, what happens if you sell the house, and whether you can leave early and on what terms. A contract that runs for a decade deserves reading even when the annual sums are modest.
Ask your installer whether they have an arrangement with a particular aggregator and whether they are paid for the referral. That is a fair question and the answer tells you how to weigh their recommendation.
None of it happens without the registration
A solar system must be registered with the Maryland Public Service Commission to generate SRECs, and within 30 days of registering the owner needs to go to PJM Interconnection's Generator Attribute Tracking System for next steps.
That sequence comes before any aggregator conversation, and it is the step most often assumed rather than done. Ask your installer in writing whether they handle it, and ask to be sent the confirmations rather than told it is complete.
One megawatt-hour of production generates one SREC, so a system producing 12,000 kilowatt-hours over a typical year generates about 12 a year. That is the volume you will be selling, which is worth knowing before you evaluate a fee structure.
Separately, net metering credits exported solar at the retail rate under a framework administered by the Public Service Commission, and that stacks with SREC income rather than replacing it.
The exemptions that need no application, and the credit that ended
Under Maryland Tax-Property Article Section 7-242, residential solar energy property is not subject to real property tax, so the improvement does not raise your property tax bill the way a renovation of similar cost would. Solar energy equipment is also exempt from the state sales and use tax.
Neither arrives as a payment, which is exactly why both get left out of people's own arithmetic. Check that your quote reflects the sales and use tax exemption rather than assuming, and add the property tax treatment to your own figures even though no installer will hand it to you.
The federal position has changed and much published material has not caught up. The 30 percent Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a cash or loan purchase now receives no federal credit. A quote that still applies it is overstating your return substantially.
Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under leases and power purchase agreements, so such a provider may claim it and reflect part of the value in the rate offered. Ask what they claim and what actually reaches you, and confirm with a tax advisor rather than with the sales material.