Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) 6 Consultation - 5 key takeaways

Introduction

On 29 January 2026 the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment (the Department) published a consultation paper on the sixth round of the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS 6 and the Consultation). 

The Consultation follows the Department's initial decision on the Implementation of the Net-Zero Industry Act Requirements into the Renewable Energy Support Scheme which was published in December last year (the Decision).

This briefing provides an overview of where we are following the Decision and then sets out our 5 key takeaways from the Consultation and how it builds upon the Decision. These takeaways include significant proposed departures from previous RESS rounds which taken together represent substantial change.

These proposed changes include a move away from technology neutral auctions, possible removal of the Unrealised Available Energy Compensation (UAEC) and changes to community benefit schemes amongst other things. We highlight the practical implications of these changes for developers and how they may affect the approach taken by them towards RESS 6.

 

Where are we following the Decision?

The Decision was made to take account of the requirements of the EU Net Zero Industry Act¹ (NZIA). The NZIA is an EU Regulation which aims to enhance European manufacturing capacity for net-zero technologies and their key components, as well as to increase the competitiveness of the net-zero technology sector, attract investments, and improve market access for clean tech in the EU.

Article 26 of NZIA specifically relates to auctions to deploy renewable energy and requires Member States to include certain pre-qualification criteria and also requires auctions to contribute to resilience and to further at least one of three specified aims which include energy system integration.

Under the Decision, the pre-qualification criteria for RESS 6 will involve self-declarations on:

• Responsible business conduct²
• Cybersecurity and data security³

The non-price award selection criteria will be:

• Resilience of components on the list adopted by the European Commission
• Energy System Integration

Scoring will be applied to the above factors, with details of the mechanism included in the RESS 6 terms and conditions as updated for changes made in the Decision. As pricing is no longer the sole metric, a methodology to convert bid prices into a score also must be developed. The Decision states that this price scoring methodology will be developed in advance of the RESS 6 auction. The weighting of the three award selection criteria also remains to be decided, however, ranges for them were proposed in the Decision. Interestingly, the Consultation asks for views on the possibility of exemption of projects under 10MW from the new NZIA requirements.

Changes proposed in the Consultation are in addition to the introduction by the Decision of these pre-qualification criteria and non-price-based award criteria. Our five key takeaways from the Consultation are set out below.

 

Our 5 Key Takeaways

Our 5 key takeaways from the Decision Paper and the New Direction are:

1. Narrowing of Eligible Technologies

After five technology neutral auctions, the Consultation proposes that RESS 6 will be restricted to onshore wind, solar PV and hybrid projects. The Consultation states that only onshore wind, solar and hybrids of these technologies with storage participated in previous RESS schemes. The NZIA introduces resilience criteria which are likely to result in different criteria for each technology. The Department states that the proposed limitation to eligible technologies is to avoid the burden of developing resilience criteria and compliance procedures for technologies which are unlikely to participate in RESS 6 (based on both previous participation and the Department's view of the current grid connection pipeline).

The questions posed by the Consultation include:

• whether the restrictions on eligible technology (e.g. hydro and biofuel CHP) are appropriate?
• what barriers have prevented other technologies from participating in previous RESS auctions?
• what alternative support measures could be considered to provide a route to market for these technologies?

Further thoughts on this are explored under the Technology Pots heading below.

2. Technology Pots

Following the Decision, RESS 6 will provide two separate pots for wind and solar energy. All previous RESS auctions operated on a single auction pot, with technologies competing only on bid price. The Decision states that adopting multiple technology-specific pots allow technology-specific NZIA criteria to be applied more fairly and consistently, while also preventing a single technology from dominating auction outcomes. This will ensure a balanced pipeline aligned with system needs. A capacity reallocation mechanism may permit unused capacity in one pot to be transferred to the other.

Despite what is said in the Decision, the Consultation revisits the issue asking if respondents agree that implementing separate auction pots for each technology is appropriate for future RESS auctions.

Technology specific pots reduce cross‑technology competition inherent in single‑pot auctions and provide greater predictability for developers, who only compete within their technology class. Technology specific pots are also often used to direct support to emerging technologies or underrepresented technology. The lack of participation by projects other than wind and solar is interesting to consider in the context of previous technology neutral auctions where such projects were in direct competition with wind and solar. The Department is now proposing to exclude participation by these other technologies on the basis that they did not participate previously but simultaneously asks how to stimulate such projects. Query is the answer a designated pot for such technologies in future auctions (acknowledging that the ECP pipeline may not available for RESS 6) rather than exclusion of them due to administrative burdens? In relation to this, REFIT 3 provided support exclusively for biomass projects (it used a levelised cost of electricity rather than an auction to set prices) and had uptake, particularly for anaerobic digestion (such projects are currently awaiting support under the proposed renewable heat obligation and it is seemingly not intended that they would use biomethane for onsite electricity generation).

3. System‑Integration Criteria

The Decision states that the award criteria for RESS 6 will include Energy System Integration. This will consist of on-site storage with proposals that longer duration storage and ability to provide higher value system services will be rewarded (although the revised scoring methodology has yet to be published).

The Decision says RESS will continue to require that supported output from all projects, including hybrid projects, is 100% renewable. Notwithstanding the above, the Department remains committed to exploring potential RESS-compatible configurations that appropriately incentivise hybrid projects.

Certain of the previous RESS schemes included provision for hybrid generation and battery projects. These hybrid projects were restricted such that the battery had to be electrically connected to the generator behind the meter and the storage had to have no separate means of importing to, or exporting from, the grid. This resulted in limited ability to use the capabilities of batteries. In the context of the UAEC which we discuss below, the Consultation states that hybrid configurations are expected to support improved dispatch flexibility, reduce impacts of dispatch down and provide more effective utilisation of available generation.

It is hoped that configurations allowed by the Department will lead to a greater ability to use a battery than was provided for under the previous RESS terms. The Department does acknowledge that certain policy and market arrangements, such as MEC sharing, are currently under development but states they are outside the scope of the Consultation.

4. Community Benefit Fund (CBF)

Previous RESS schemes provided for a CBF to which scheme participants are required to contribute EUR2/MWh of loss adjusted metered quantity (i.e. linked to actual generation). The Department is considering two changes to the CBF requirements:

• calculating the contributions of EUR2/MWh on the basis of deemed energy output rather than the loss adjusted metered quantity, and
• introducing a further milestone of CBF establishment to be satisfied on or before the date the project receives its Interim Operation Notice (ION) from the System Operator.

Although the Department states that the deemed energy output would be calculated in the same manner as Deemed Energy Quantities used in winner selection in RESS T&Cs, it is notable that the Consultation also proposes increases to capacity factors to 45% for onshore wind and 14% for solar. It states that these increases are to reflect increased technology efficiencies and invites views on whether they are accurate notwithstanding dispatch down levels.

The Department states that these capacity factors will be used for Bid Bond and Performance Security calculations as well as to convert RESS Offer Quantities into Deemed Energy Quantities during the auction process. It is not entirely clear if the Department intends that these increased capacity factors would increase the deemed energy output for the purposes of calculating the CBF contributions.

The proposal on CBF contributions transfers the energy yield risk, in so far as it relates to the CBF contributions, to projects. There may be a consequent impact on the prices bid into the auction including due to assumptions on how fixed CBF contribution will interact with accuracy of energy yield predictions.

The Department cites two advantages of the proposed approach as follows:

• removal of the requirement for a year-to-year reconciliation using metered output
• removing uncertainty for CBF administrators and communities as to the funds that will be available within the cycle.

5. Unrealised Available Energy Compensation (UAEC) Review

RESS 3 introduced the UAEC which provides compensation for network curtailment and oversupply to participating projects. The UAEC was introduced to reduce bid prices as developers would not be required to make assumptions regarding these risks. The risks of curtailment and oversupply have not reduced in the intervening period. However, the Consultation considers removing the UAEC since, for RESS 6 onwards, non-price criteria under the Energy System Integration heading from the NZIA will apply, as per the proposals outlined in the Decision.

The Department states that the new Energy System Integration criteria rewards hybrid and storage‑enabled projects that naturally reduce curtailment as hybrids become more flexible and better at utilising available generation. The Department states that continuing the UAEC could dilute the incentive to invest in storage, so it is evaluating whether adjusting or removing UAEC would better align with RESS 6’s system‑integration goals while maintaining a stable support framework. Loss of UAEC and requiring bidders to make assumptions on oversupply and curtailment may impact bid prices. The consequences of this for the auction outcome is likely to depend to a material extent on the hybrid project configurations allowed and also the regulatory regime for hybrid projects which is under development.

 

Other points in the Consultation

Scheme duration

The Consultation states that RESS is currently offered for a nominal period of 15 years (although depending on when projects achieve commercial operation, there is a degree of variability in this). The Department also notes that the maximum contract duration is 25 years pursuant to State Aid rules.

The Department has previously requested observations on changes to RESS duration and is again doing so but notes it has not previously received sufficient evidence to make a change. The Department states that it is again reviewing duration in the context of deliverability and bid prices. It states that it is also considering options such as phased reduction of support levels over an extended period.

The questions raised by the Department suggest various options including extending the period of support by 5 years but reducing the support prices over that additional period.

Settlement

On market settlement mechanisms, the Consultation explores introducing longer market price reference periods beyond the current hourly Day Ahead Market price. This proposal derives from December 2025 European Commission guidance recommending that CfD schemes use longer reference periods to incentivise forward market participation and cost-efficient maintenance scheduling. Further detail on this is needed to assess if this change could introduce new price risks that would affect bid prices.

Relief Events

The Consultation flags the judicial review and system operator delay relief events that were introduced by RESS 4 which allowed for two-year relief windows. One of the questions raised is if it would be appropriate to increase the relief window to three years which, if implemented, would be widely welcomed.

Repowering

For a repowered project to participate in RESS, projects had to have an increase of 50% in deemed energy output compared to existing average output and repowered projects had to meet a threshold level of investment of EUR300,000/MW. The Consultation seeks feedback on these conditions and raises a series of related questions.

 

What's Next?

The Consultation is open for responses until 13 March 2026 at 5.00pm.

Following consideration of responses, the Department expects to publish the terms and conditions for RESS 6 in Q2 this year. The Department also expects to obtain European Commission State Aid approval in sufficient time to allow its timetable to be met.

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¹Regulation (EU) 2024/1735
²Based on CSDDD for in scope entities and a reporting framework to be selected by the Department for other entities.
³NIS2 certification for the energy sector will be required once available. Equivalent standards may also be accepted.