Renewables Obligation Certificates presented and Redistribution of Buy-Out Fund 2024 to 2025

The Renewables Obligation (RO) requires licensed electricity suppliers to source a proportion of the electricity they supply to UK customers from renewable sources. We set suppliers’ obligations as a number of Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs).

The obligation levels for 2024 to 2025, announced by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) on 27 September 2023, are:

• 0.491 Renewables Obligation Certificates per MWh of electricity supplied to customers in England, Wales and Scotland 
• 0.192 Renewables Obligation Certificates per MWh of electricity supplied to customers in Northern Ireland 

Multiplying these obligation levels by the total electricity supplied (in MWh) to UK customers during this obligation period (1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025) and rounding to the nearest whole number, the total obligation for 2024 to 2025 is 119,526,379 Renewables Obligation Certificates.

Split out for each obligation jurisdiction, this is: 

• 107,608,506 Renewables Obligation Certificates in England and Wales 
• 10,524,875 Renewables Obligation Certificates in Scotland 
• 1,392,998 Renewables Obligation Certificates in Northern Ireland 

Suppliers were able to meet their obligations for 2024 to 2025 by 1 September 2025 by:  

• presenting Renewables Obligation Certificates to us 
• making a buy-out payment of £64.73 per Renewables Obligation Certificate (these must be made by 31 August) 
• using a combination of Renewables Obligation Certificates and a buy-out payment 

Any suppliers who did not meet their obligations in full by 1 September were required to make a late payment by 31 October.

We have recently redistributed the Renewables Obligation buy-out fund for 2024 to 2025. Details of the obligations and total payments for each Renewables Obligation scheme are shown in the table below.

Suppliers that presented ROCs towards their obligations received buy-out fund recycle payments on 24 October 2025. The amounts to be redistributed are shown in the 'Buy-out redistributed’ column. We reached these values by withdrawing our and the Northern Ireland Authority for utility regulation’s administration costs and rounding down the redistribution amounts to the nearest whole pound.

Suppliers received approximately £7.97 for each ROC they presented. The proportion of the total ROCs each supplier presented, and therefore the share of buy-out payments they received (rounded to 2 decimal places), is shown in the table below.

There was a combined shortfall of £30,537,581.91 in the buy-out funds. This was due to four suppliers not meeting their total obligations by the 1 September deadline. These suppliers consequently owed late payments. 

The breakdown of the shortfall by jurisdiction was:  

• England and Wales £28,570,890.31 
• Scotland £1,966,691.60 
• Northern Ireland £0.00  

Rebel Energy Limited is one of the four suppliers that has not met their obligation. They have entered into administration and have ceased trading as of 1 April 2025. Their obligation was £9,335,231.14 for England and Wales and £444,630.37 for Scotland.

The shortfalls in the buy-out funds were below the respective mutualisation thresholds of £79,000,000 for England and Wales and £7,900,000 for Scotland on 3 April 2024, as such mutualisation has not been triggered for the 2024 to 2025 compliance year.

The deadline for suppliers to make late payments is 31 October 2025 and we will redistribute these before 1 January 2026. This will include interest paid by the suppliers at an annualised rate of 9.00% (5% + Bank of England base rate as of 18 September 2025). When we redistribute the late payments, we will also confirm the final recycle value, which will include an extra amount on top of the £7.97 per ROC.

Please contact RECompliance@ofgem.gov.uk for more information.