The results of the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) Auction #11 were released today by the Washington State Department of Ecology. CCA Auction #11 generated an additional $296 million for climate and clean energy projects, plus another $150 million as consigned revenue for utilities to use for decarbonization and other community-facing uses such as rate-payer assistance.
This brings the total funding generated by the CCA to $1.11 billion in consigned revenue and nearly $3.48 billion in state-led revenue being reinvested in Washington communities.
You can always explore approximately 2,700 CCA-funded projects in our interactive resource: Mapping Washington’s Climate Commitments. Earlier this summer, Clean & Prosperous Institute (CPI) updated the map to reflect the 2025 Legislative session and feature $4.74 billion in existing and planned spending through June 2027.
Average allowance prices in Auction #11 came in at $64.30, triggering a special allowance price containment reserve (APCR) auction to release more allowance supply. The original regulatory analysis of the Climate Commitment Act conducted for Ecology projected that 18.6 million allowances from APCR auctions would be purchased through 2025. So far, only 7.1M APCR allowances have been purchased to-date, while Washington’s cap-and-invest program has consistently remained below allowance cost projections issued before the auctions began.[1] A year on from Washington voters refusing to repeal the CCA, the market is functioning effectively, finding efficiencies, encouraging innovation, and avoiding unsustainable costs.
Auction #11 saw robust market participation with all offered allowances being sold.[i] The auction raised significant new revenue to continue funding efforts to reduce pollution, increase transportation accessibility and safety, and support the clean energy transition. The upcoming APCR auction can generate additional investment revenue for these purposes that was not originally anticipated for investments.
In California, the prospect of linking carbon markets is poised to take a step forward this week. On September 10, Assembly Bill 1207 to extend and reauthorize Californa’s cap-and-invest program was released. The potential passage of AB 1207 would reauthorize California’s program to closely align with Washington’s, which represents another milestone towards linkage.
Linking these markets will provide substantial near- and long-term benefits aligned with the CCA’s goals, including program durability, market stability, lower compliance costs, reduced leakage risk, increased investment predictability, and the potential for enhanced collective ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across jurisdictions.
APCR Auction Added
In Washington, entities regulated by the CCA are guaranteed one APCR auction annually. Per statute, the guaranteed APCR auction must take place ahead of the November 1 program compliance deadline and can be used for immediate compliance needs only. This year, that auction will be held on October 1, 2025. With today’s announced auction results, there will be an additional APCR auction on November 12, 2025.
In APCR auctions, a pre-determined set of reserve allowances are offered for a pre-determined price. The October 1 pre-compliance guaranteed APCR auction will offer 3,641,333 allowances at $60.43 each. The Washington State Department of Ecology will release more information about the November auction in the coming weeks.
What is the APCR?
By definition, the APCR is “an account maintained by Ecology with allowances available for sale through separate reserve auctions at predefined prices to assist in containing compliance costs for covered and opt-in entities in the event of unanticipated high costs for compliance instruments.”
The CCA was designed with various mechanisms to moderate and stabilize market prices below the price ceiling, and the APCR is the first of these to come into play. An APCR auction is required when allowances sold at any one of the quarterly auctions exceed a predetermined trigger price.
The APCR allowances come from a set of allowances under the CCA’s 2023-2030 pollution cap, and will be expanded to include allowances from 2031-2040 under HB 1975, passed by the Legislature this year. These APCR allowances were initially set aside and reserved for auction if certain price points were surpassed in any single auction, if new covered parties entered the program, and once each year before any compliance deadline.
In a June 2023 conversation with the Washington State Standard, Ecology described the intent of the APCR auction: “This is what the program is designed to do. This is not an emergency.”
[1] A frequently cited industry forecast during CCA passage and rulemaking projected allowance prices of $184-$214 in 2024-2027 for a program that was not linked to California’s. The state’s economic modeling for the final regulatory analysis predicted costs of $65 in 2025. Average prices have been below each of these forecasts since the first auction in 2023 ($53 in 2023, $32 in 2024, $57 so far in 2025).
[i] The bid ratio (2.41) and share of purchases by compliance entities (92.69%) were both near all-time highs
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