UK energy regulator Ofgem has announced that renewable energy generator Drax Power will pay £25 million for misreporting data regarding imported biomass from Canada. In May 2023, Ofgem launched an investigation into whether Drax had breached annual profiling reporting requirements under the Renewables Obligations (RO) scheme.
Ofgem concluded that Drax lacked adequate data governance controls for the biomass imported from Canada between April 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022. However, there was no evidence that the biomass failed to meet sustainability requirements.
Drax has agreed to pay the £25 million to Ofgem’s voluntary redress fund, which will support charities helping vulnerable energy customers. The company will also resubmit the data for its Canadian biomass imports and conduct an independent audit of its biomass profiling data for the reporting period from April 2023 to March 2024.
Drax is the UK’s largest renewable energy generator by output, having converted four coal-power units to biomass and operating hydropower projects.