Ofgem orders five suppliers to pay £575,000 for Feed-in Tariff scheme

14 Nov 2021 01:16 PM

Ofgem is issuing five suppliers with provisional orders, compelling them to pay £575,000 in total for the Feed-in Tariff scheme.

The Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme, which is administered by Ofgem, provides payments to owners of small-scale renewable energy generators, and is funded through compulsory levies on suppliers.

In total, five suppliers will receive provisional orders for failure to make payment by the second quarter payment deadline of 10 November 2021. Failure to pay may cause mutualisation to be triggered.

Any supplier that failed to meet the deadline is in breach of the Electricity Supply Standard Licence Condition (“SLC”) 33.

The five suppliers must now make the payments owed immediately.

If the suppliers fail to comply with the order, Ofgem may take further enforcement action and they could end up having their licences revoked or face a financial penalty.

The suppliers and amounts owed are:

Suppliers	Amount owed
Whoop Energy	£19,013
Simply Your Energy/ Entice	£28,353
Social Energy Supply	£28,735
Delta Gas and Power	£46,701
Orbit Energy	£451,296

Notes to Editors

The Feed-in Tariffs scheme is a government programme designed to promote the uptake of smaller scale renewable and low-carbon electricity generation. It requires participating electricity suppliers to make payments on both generation and export from eligible installations. Ofgem administers the scheme on behalf of government.
The cost of the FIT scheme is apportioned across Licensed Electricity Suppliers under a mechanism known as the FIT levelisation process. The cost is apportioned based on each supplier's share of the Great Britain electricity market, whilst taking into account any payments they have made to FIT generators.
SLC 33 stipulates that all licensed electricity suppliers that have supplied electricity in Great Britain, within the relevant FIT year or quarter are obligated to participate in the FIT levelisation process. They have to declare the amount of electricity they have supplied and make a financial contribution towards the scheme in proportion to this.
Provisional and final orders are made with the intention of bringing an end to a breach (or likely breach) of a licence condition or other relevant requirement. A provisional order, rather than a final order, is made to address an urgent need to remedy harm caused by that apparent breach.
Shortfalls in the late payment fund for the Feed-In Tariff scheme will trigger mutualisation if the relevant threshold of £4.52 million for this quarter is met. This means that suppliers who have complied with their obligations in full or in part will be required to make up the shortfall.

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