Renewables Obligation (RO) Buy-out Price and Mutualisation Ceilings for 2020-21

Guidance
Publication date
Industry sector
Generation and Wholesale Market
Scheme name
RO

The buy-out price for the 2020-21 obligation period is £50.05 per Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC). This is the amount suppliers will need to pay for each ROC they do not present towards compliance with their 2020-21 obligation.

The mutualisation ceilings for the 2020-21 obligation period are £301,471,100.35 in England and Wales and £30,147,110.03 in Scotland (mutualisation does not apply in Northern Ireland). Mutualisation will be triggered in the event of a relevant shortfall in the buy-out fund. You can find the definition and amounts of relevant shortfall for each obligation period in Article 72 (3) in the Renewables Obligation Order 2015; Article 48 (3) and Schedule 3 in The Renewables Obligation (Scotland) Order 2009.

We update the buy-out price and mutualisation ceilings annually to reflect the average monthly percentage change in the Retail Prices Index (RPI) during the previous calendar year. The average RPI percentage change during the 2019 calendar year was 2.6% (Source: Office for National Statistics).

The buy-out prices and obligation levels for recent years are shown in the table below:

Obligation Period (1 April - 31 March)

Buy-out Price

Obligation For England & Wales and Scotland (ROCs/MWh)

Obligation For Northern Ireland (ROCs/MWh)

2010-2011

£36.99

0.111

0.0427

2011-2012

£38.69

0.124

0.055

2012-2013

£40.71

0.158

0.081

2013-2014

£42.02

0.206

0.097

2014-2015

£43.30

0.244

0.107

2015-2016

£44.33

0.290

0.119

2016-2017

£44.77

0.348

0.142

2017-2018

£45.58

0.409

0.167

2018-2019

£47.22

0.468

0.185

2019-2020

£48.78

0.484

0.190

2020-2021

£50.05

0.471

0.185

For more information, contact RECompliance@ofgem.gov.uk.