From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
The cost of Renewables Obligation subsidies has now topped £100 billion, according to Government statistics recently released.
Subsidy payments are increased in line with RPI every year, but at 2025 prices the bill since 2010 has now risen to £101.2 billion. Last year alone, renewable generators received subsidies of £7.7 billion. Two thirds go to wind and solar farms, which we are told are the cheapest forms of energy.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-trends-section-6-renewables
Until last month, all these subsidies were paid for through our electricity bills. (From April 2026, some of the cost is now being funded out of general taxation – but either way, we still have to pay!).
Bear in mind that, in addition to these subsidies, renewable generators also sell their electricity on the market. Effectively we are paying twice for the power they produce.
The Renewables Obligation Scheme (RO) covers renewable generators built before 2017, when the scheme was replaced for new generators by the Contracts for Difference subsidy. The scheme lasts for twenty years for each generator, so we will continue to pay billions out for many years to come.
Every year Ofgem sets a target for licensed electricity suppliers. Suppliers must source a certain proportion of the electricity they supply to customers from renewable sources, expressed as a number of Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) per megawatt-hour (MWh) supplied.
In turn, wind farms and other renewable generators, accredited under RO are awarded ROCs. Suppliers can either buy these from the generators or pay into OFGEM’s “Buy Out Fund”, at a fixed price set at the start of the year and increased each year in line with RPI. (From April 2026, CPI is used instead). Effectively then, OFGEM sets the market price for ROCs.
Nobody ever voted to pay £100 billion to wind farms and the rest, as far as I can recall! The policy was never included in any party’s manifesto. Instead, it was imposed by government diktat.
The RO scheme was originally introduced by the DTI in 2002 via a Statutory Instrument, about which the Parliament website says:
“Statutory instruments are the most common form of secondary (or delegated) legislation.
The power to make a statutory instrument is set out in an Act of Parliament and nearly always conferred on a Minister of the Crown. The Minister is then able to make law on the matters identified in the Act, and using the parliamentary procedure set out in the Act.”
In other words, a Minister can use an SI to make law, without the need for an Act of Parliament. The original legal authority was embedded in the innocuous sounding Utilities Act 2000, a wide-ranging bill designed to regulate the gas and electricity industries. It was never the intention of that Act to empower Ministers to levy tens of billions from bill payers in order to pursue their perverted political agenda.
· And in 2010 the scheme was extended from 2027 to 2037, by which time the bill will probably have doubled, again using an SI.
And these are not the only subsidies for renewables, that we pay for on our bills. The Contracts for Difference, mentioned above, has already cost £13 billion since 2016.
Meanwhile, the Feed in Tariff scheme, which covers smaller generators, has now paid out more than £17 billion since 2011.
There was never any democratic mandate for any of this. At no stage were the public consulted, never mind given the opportunity to vote on renewable energy policy, Ed Miliband’s 2008 Climate Change Act or Theresa May’s suicidal Net Zero law.
But we are all paying the bill.
