Claim of Pass-on through Green Energy Certificates Denied

31/10/25

The Spottiswoode claim is a collective proceedings claim on behalf of electricity consumers in Great Britain alleging that they paid increased prices for energy by reason of a cartel affecting power cables between 1999 and 2009. The cartel was established by a European Commission Decision dating from 2014.

Part of Ms Spottiswoode’s claim alleges that higher cable prices paid by windfarms led the UK Government to award a higher number of Renewables Obligation Certificates (“ROCs”) to offshore wind under a 2010 scheme than it would otherwise have done. ROCs provide financial support to renewable energy suppliers to make up for the increased cost of generating electricity by renewable means. The decision as to the number of ROCs per unit of electricity to award to each type of renewable energy generation is known as the ROC banding decision. The cost of the ROC scheme ultimately falls on electricity bill-payers in Great Britain.

Following a preliminary issue trial in May and June of this year, the CAT found on the facts that the overcharge on cables alleged by Ms Spottiswoode accounted for too small a proportion of overall windfarm costs to have made any difference to the 2010 ROC banding decision. As the ROC banding decision would have been the same in the counterfactual, the class suffered no loss under the 2010 scheme by reason of any overcharge to which windfarm developers may have been subject. Accordingly, any loss suffered by individual windfarms from the cartel was not passed on to electricity bill-payers via the 2010 ROC scheme.  

The judgment is here.