URE Energy’s licence will be revoked by Ofgem after the supplier failed to meets its renewables obligation for 2017-2018.

Electricity supplier URE Energy has been stripped of its licence by regulator Ofgem after failing to pay into a fund when it did not source enough renewable energy.

URE Energy failed to meet its renewables obligation by not paying into the buy-out fund by 31 August 2018, or presenting renewables obligation certificates by 1 September 2018, or by making a late payment by 31 October 2018.

Under the government’s renewables obligation scheme, suppliers, such as URE, who do not source the required proportion of electricity from renewable sources have to pay into a buy-out fund administered by Ofgem.

Ofgem previously gave notice to URE Energy and Eversmart Energy to deliver all outstanding renewables obligation payments by 31 March 2019 through monthly instalments.

Eversmart Energy paid what it owed but URE Energy failed to make any payments and was issued with a final order to make the payments. It failed to comply with the final order, which required a payment of £209,013.78. Subsequently Ofgem is revoking its licence to supply electricity.

For 2018-2019, suppliers have until 31 August 2019 to meet their obligation or can pay the amount owed plus interest within the late payment window until 31 October 2019. Suppliers who fail to meet their obligation face action from Ofgem.

Last year, Ofgem opened investigations into Economy Energy and Spark Energy over their non-payment. Both have since exited the market.

Mark Todd, co-founder of energyhelpline.com, said: “Another supplier likely to go bust soon following on from Solarplicity earlier this week. Normally the first sign of problems at a supplier is their failure to pay the renewables obligation. This occurred about a year ago for URE energy.

“They now no longer have a licence to supply electricity or gas so with debts to Ofgem and no licence to supply energy they don’t appear to have a business left.

“With the energy price cap dropping, and even huge suppliers like npower, British Gas and SSE all in trouble, we are expecting a spate of suppliers to fold or exit the market over the next six months. At 75 suppliers there are simply too many for the market to sustain. This is likely shake down to 30 to 50 over the next few years in a huge consolidation.”

Solarplicity, which had about 7,500 domestic energy customers, went bust earlier this week.