Renewables Obligation (RO) Annual Report 2020-21

Reports, plans and updates

Publication date

Scheme name

RO

Key points of interest from the Renewables Obligation Annual Report for the year ending 31 March 2021:
Compliance by licensed electricity suppliers and scheme value

  • 105.26 million Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) were presented by suppliers in the 2020-21 obligation year. This was 88.4% of the total obligation of 119.09 million ROCs, and a slightly lower proportion in comparison to the 89.1% presented for the 2019-20 obligation year.
     
  • Payments collected from suppliers not meeting their obligation through presenting ROCs alone, resulted in a combined buy-out and late payment fund totalling over £465.9 million.
     
  • Each ROC was worth £54.47, which when multiplied by the 105.26m ROCs presented, results in a scheme value of £5.73 billion.

Mutualisation

In 2020-21, 28 suppliers did not submit ROCs or make payments sufficient to meet their obligation. This resulted in a shortfall of £218.3m in the buy-out/late payment funds. This shortfall triggered mutualisation for the fourth successive year.

Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) issued and renewable generation

  • We issued 109.3 million ROCs in 2020-21. This was a decrease of 4.8% from last year but was still the second-largest ROC issue in the scheme’s history. 
     
  • ROCs were issued based on 80.3 TWh of renewable generation. This was equivalent to 31.2% of the UK electricity supply market.
     
  • Total generation when including output on the Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) and Contracts for Difference (CfD) schemes rises to 112.1 TWh, equivalent to 43.6% of UK supply.

Generating stations accredited

  • From the start of the scheme in 2002, we have accredited 26,599 generating stations with a total capacity of 35.4GW.