Renewables Obligation Annual Report: Scheme Year 23 from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025

The Renewables Obligation (RO) is a government scheme designed to support large-scale renewable electricity generation in Great Britain, and both large-scale and smaller scale renewable electricity generation in Northern Ireland. 

As one of the government’s primary mechanisms for supporting large‑scale renewable electricity generation, the RO has helped provide millions of UK households and businesses with a secure supply of clean electricity and has been a major contributor to net zero since its launch. 

This annual report provides an update on activity under the RO scheme during Scheme Year 23 (SY23), covering the period from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025. It sets out information on accredited generators, the number of Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) issued and the associated renewable electricity generated, as well as biomass sustainability, audit and compliance activity, and our ongoing administration of the scheme. 

Scheme Year 23 Highlights 

ROCs issued and low-carbon electricity generation 

• We issued 101.4 million ROCs to eligible renewable electricity generators in SY23, a decrease on the 107.4 million ROCs issued in SY22.
• ROCs were issued based on 74.8 GWh of eligible electricity during SY23. This was generated by 26,644 accredited stations with a generation capacity of 35.0 GW.
• The electricity generated on the RO in SY23 was equivalent to 30.2% of the total UK electricity supply market. When combined with generation under the Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) and Contracts for Difference (CfD) schemes, the figure rises to 46.6%.  

Compliance by licensed electricity suppliers 

• Suppliers must meet their obligations by presenting ROCs to us, making a payment per ROC into a buy-out or late-payment fund, or through a combination of these. The collective supplier obligation was 119.5 million ROCs for SY23.
• Suppliers presented 105.9 million ROCs towards the total obligation, or 88.6% of the total. Payments totalling £613.7 million were made into the buy-out and late payment funds.
• Tomato Energy and Rebel Energy both ceased trading and failed to submit ROCs or making payments sufficient to meet their obligations. This led to a total shortfall of £23,557,486 across the England & Wales and Scotland RO schemes.
• Although there was a shortfall in SY23, it was well below the mutualisation threshold. Therefore, mutualisation was not triggered for the third year in a row. 

Generator compliance 

• A total of 492 compliance investigations, opened in various scheme years, were closed during SY23. In 44 cases, installations were deemed to have made financial gain through non-compliance with the RO regulations. For these installations we took action to work with generators to resolve the issues identified and recover ROCs where they had been overissued.
• The total value of our work detecting and preventing error on the RO scheme during SY23 was approximately £5.21 million.  

Please note: For those wishing to look at the data used in the report in more detail, a spreadsheet with this information is published below.