# The Renewables Obligation (Amendment) (Energy Intensive Industries) Order 2017, Note: Explanatory note


(This note is not part of the Order)
This Order amends the Renewables Obligation Order 2015 (the “2015 Order”). The 2015 Order imposes an obligation (the “renewables obligation”), on all electricity suppliers licensed under the Electricity Act 1989 which supply electricity in England and Wales, to produce a certain number of renewables obligation certificates in respect of the electricity they supply to customers in England and Wales during a specified period known as an “obligation period”. Each obligation period runs from 1st April to 31st March. The renewables obligation is administered by the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority (the “Authority”) which issues renewables obligation certificates to renewable electricity generators based on their renewable output. These certificates are sold to electricity suppliers with or without the associated renewable electricity.
Article 2 inserts a new definition of “EII excluded electricity” into the 2015 Order. “EII excluded electricity” is defined by reference to regulation 6(1) of the Electricity Supplier Obligations (Amendment & Excluded Electricity) Regulations 2015 (the “2015 Regulations”) and comprises electricity which is supplied to certain industrial users of electricity. The 2015 Regulations set out a process for determining whether electricity is EII excluded electricity.
Articles 3 and 8 make amendments to the electricity supply in respect of which renewables obligation certificates are to be produced and amendments to the process for calculating the number of certificates to be produced.
Article 3 amends the provision imposing the renewables obligation in article 7(2) of the 2015 Order and inserts a new paragraph (5) with a new definition of “relevant electricity”.
Article 8 inserts new articles 13A and 13B into the 2015 Order. New article 13A applies in place of article 13 of the 2015 Order to determine the number of renewables obligation certificates to be produced by an electricity supplier in respect of obligation periods beginning on or after 1st April 2019. The new article requires the Secretary of State to estimate the amount of EII excluded electricity likely to be supplied to customers in Great Britain by electricity suppliers in England, Wales and Scotland. The formulae in article 13 of the 2015 Order for calculating the number of renewables obligation certificates to be produced are adjusted to reflect the exclusion of EII excluded electricity from the electricity supply in respect of which renewables obligation certificates are required to be produced.
New article 13B enables the Secretary of State to revise the renewables obligation for an obligation period after the number of renewables obligation certificates to be produced for that period has been published. A revision may be made for the obligation period beginning on 1st April 2017 and for the obligation period beginning on 1st April 2018.
Articles 4 to 7 make a number of consequential amendments to Part 2 of the 2015 Order.
Article 9 amends article 79(2) of the 2015 Order to set out the circumstances in which information regarding the supply of EII excluded electricity to customers in England and Wales must be provided to the Authority and the Secretary of State by electricity suppliers.
An explanatory memorandum is available alongside this Order on www.legislation.gov.uk. An impact assessment of the effect that this Order will have on the costs of business and the voluntary sector is available alongside the Order on that website.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2017/9780111159170/note (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/draft-renewables-obligation-amendment-energy-intensive-industries-order-2017/note
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.