The Subsidy Clock
What UK energy subsidies cost
A live, sourced tally of payments to renewable and low-carbon electricity generators — traced to the official registers.
Total paid since 2002
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A few ways to picture it — refresh for more.
The direct bill
The indirect bill estimated
Amounts are measured from official sources; the share attributed to renewables is an estimate. How each attribution works.
By scheme
Cumulative cost of each direct subsidy scheme.
By technology CfD schemes only
Net Contracts for Difference payments by technology.
Negative values are net paybacks: market prices exceeded the strike price.
Largest recipients
Ranked by cumulative payment, merging CfD payments grouped by physical station and constraint payments by lead party.
Where the money lands — see these recipients on a map →
| # | Recipient | Technology | Scheme | Cumulative |
|---|
Wind farms built in stages hold a separate CfD contract per phase; these rows group the phases into one physical station, which you can expand to see the individual contracts (for example Walney Extension Phase 1 and Phase 2). Station groupings follow the LCCC contract register, via David Turver. Renewables Obligation recipients are shown at buy-out value — the per-generator basis, from David Turver’s ROC reconstruction; the RO scheme total additionally includes recycle value, so these per-station figures understate the full cost. A plant with units under more than one scheme appears once per scheme — Drax, for example, holds Renewables Obligation biomass units and a separate CfD unit, shown as two rows. Constraint-payment recipients reflect the bottom-up settlement window shown in the ‘Paid to switch off’ section; earlier constraint history is held at annual totals only.
Paid to switch off
Constraint payments to wind farms instructed to reduce output when the grid cannot carry their electricity.
Largest recipients
| Lead party | Paid | MWh curtailed |
|---|
‘Lead party’ is the registered Balancing Mechanism party that routes a unit’s output to market, not necessarily the asset’s owner. One lead party (for example Statkraft) may trade on behalf of several wind farms, so it appears as the payee for constraint payments it passes through to them.