There was a combined shortfall of more than £105 million in the renewables obligation (RO) buy-out funds due to suppliers not meeting the relevant deadlines, Ofgem has revealed.
The regulator said 33 suppliers failed to meet their total obligations by the deadlines; 31 August for buy-out payments and 1 September for RO certificates.
Under the RO scheme electricity suppliers are required to source a proportion of the electricity they supply to UK customers from renewable sources. Ofgem sets this obligation as a number of renewables obligation certificates (ROCs).
The regulator has previously revealed that the total obligation for 2019/20 was more than 130 million ROCs.
Suppliers were able to meet their obligations for 2019/20 by:
- Presenting ROCs to Ofgem
- Making a buy-out payment of £48.78 per ROC
- Using a combination of ROCs and a buy-out payment
Ofgem has since redistributed the buy-out fund and says it will redistribute the late payments (owed by 31 October) before 1 January 2021.
Recently the regulator issued three suppliers with final orders over their failure to make a total of £15 million in RO and Feed-in Tariff (FIT) payments.
The three in question are Robin Hood Energy, Nabuh and Symbio.
Their outstanding amounts were:
| Supplier | RO payments owed (excluding interest) | FIT payments owed |
| Robin Hood Energy | £12,057,879.42 | £33,945.51 |
| Nabuh Energy | £2,683,631.70 | |
| Symbio Energy | £506,308 |
The regulator added that is engaged with other suppliers which also missed the 31 August and 1 September deadlines but provided satisfactory assurances that they will be in a position to fulfil their annual obligations by the late payment deadline.
Ofgem is expected to issue an update on the amount still owed next week.
In 2019 mutualisation was triggered for the second time in as many years, after a £206 million shortfall in outstanding payments was reached, well above the relevant shortfall thresholds of £15.4 million for England and Wales and £1.54 million for Scotland.