Feed-in Tariffs Annual Report: Scheme Year 14 (April 2023 to March 2024)
Reports, plans and updates
- Publication date
- Scheme name
- FIT
Launched in 2010, the Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) scheme was designed to promote the uptake of small-scale low-carbon electricity generation. The FIT requires participating electricity suppliers to make payments to eligible small-scale generators for the generation and export of electricity to the grid. Through this, the FIT has subsidised the deployment of low-carbon generation technologies within households, businesses, organisations and communities, supporting the development of a flexible, affordable and net zero energy system.
The scheme closed to new entrants in 2019. However, the scheme remains active as accredited installations can receive FIT payments for up to 20 years after the scheme’s closure.
This annual report provides an update on FIT scheme activity during Scheme Year 14 (SY14), covering the period 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. It provides information on the installations registered, the electricity generated and exported, the associated payments made, the scheme’s costs, and our compliance and administrative activity.
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.
Highlights
FIT installations
- at the end of SY14, there were 869,857 installations accredited on the scheme with a total installed capacity of nearly 6.49 GW. Overall, 98.93% of FIT installations are solar photovoltaic and 95.38% are in domestic settings
- micro scale installations (capacity of 50 kW or less) account for 99.21% of FIT installations and 53.78% of installed capacity. Rooftop solar panels make up the vast majority (99.28%) of these smaller installations
- amongst larger installations (capacity above 50 kW), solar PV is still the most common technology, accounting for 57.50% of capacity. However, the other technologies see more representation here. The mix is as follows: wind (23.97% capacity), anaerobic digestion (9.98% capacity) and hydro (8.54% capacity)
Renewable generation and scheme costs
- during SY14 8.3 TWh of renewable electricity was generated, for which FIT generators were paid just over £1.76 billion. Of this generated electricity, 1.3 TWh (15.8%) was exported to the grid, with associated export payments of around £78.4 million. Total FIT payments therefore reached £1.84 billion
- in SY14, the total value of the scheme increased by £125.3 million (7.3%) to almost £1.86 billion. As generation fell by around 0.56 TWh (6.3%) from SY13 levels, this can be linked to an increase in tariff rates as they have changed in line with inflation
Monitoring compliance
- we operate robust audit and compliance programmes to ensure that suppliers are fulfilling their obligations and payments to generators are only made against eligible generation and export. We reserve the right to pursue compliance and enforcement action when participants fail to comply with scheme rules
- in the SY14 levelisation process, eight suppliers submitted their data late and there were 210 incorrect data submissions. In total, there were 13 late levelisation payments totalling £28,906,428. Ultimately, none of these payments were left unpaid and mutualisation was not triggered
- we closed 39 compliance investigations looking at FIT generators in SY14. Through this, we successfully identified just over £3.30 million of error and suspected fraud. Of this, we prevented £2,993,651 being paid out incorrectly and we detected a further £310,086 that was paid to generators who were not eligible to receive it