The Climate Change Levy (CCL) is a tax charged on gas, electricity, LPG, coal and coke used by businesses in the UK.
A tax discount is available for businesses in a number of specific energy-intensive sectors and those with environmental impact. It is given in return for meeting agreed energy efficiency targets. Horticulture, pig and poultry production are the three qualifying sectors in the NFU CCL Scheme.
The NFU is the trade association responsible for the horticulture, pig and poultry CCL schemes. NFU Energy administers the scheme for the NFU and provides expert help and guidance to members of the scheme. We currently represent some 700 farm and nursery businesses.
Since the 01 April 2024, the discount on CCL is 92% for electricity, 77% for LPG and 89% for gas.
In order to receive the CCL discount, you have to:
Sign a Climate Change Agreement - a legal agreement between you and the Government that commits you to meet future energy efficiency targets.
Return energy and production data at set intervals to prove that you are actually achieving these targets.
Should you miss your targets, you can either leave the scheme or pay to compensate for the amount of carbon you have emitted over and above your energy target.
Our service is made up of two parts:
Initial registration -- this covers setting up your Climate Change Agreement (CCA) for you with the Government's agents, the Environment Agency (EA), and collecting and registering the relevant data and all other supporting material with them. A transfer of CCA to a different legal entity is also considered an "initial registration" which is paid when setting up a CCA.
Annual membership -- this provides:
Fees are payable per site as follows:
We will provide you with a formal quotation detailing the costs and benefits of the scheme after we have received your completed new entrant quotation request form. VAT is charged at the prevailing rate on the first two fees, but not on EA fees.
| Fee per site | |
|---|---|
| NFU Member | £467.00 |
| Non-NFU member | £700.00 |
The annual fee covers the support provided by NFU Energy. Fees cover a financial year (April to March inclusive) and are invoiced in advance in April each year. The fees are revised annually. The fees for 2024 are:
| Horticulture, based on energy use per site | Horticulture, based on energy use per site | Horticulture, based on energy use per site | Pigs and poultry per site | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charge rate (p/GWh) | Minimum fee | Maximum fee | ||
| NFU Member | £160 | £307 | £3,888.00 | £282 |
| Non-NFU member | £240 | £461 | £5,832.00 | £565 |
In addition to the NFU fees, the EA also charge an annual administration fee of £185 per year per site registered on the CCL scheme. **The EA fee covers a calendar year **(January to December inclusive). To reduce costs, NFU Energy collects the EA fee on their behalf. This means that NFU Energy will collect both fees, once a year, in April. Please note the EA do not make any reimbursements for part year membership. So, if you have a CCA at any point in a year, you are liable to pay the EA fee for that year for each site listed in the CCA.
Climate Change Agreements are voluntary agreements between the Government and operators. They contain targets to reduce energy consumption. If you want to claim Climate Change Levy (CCL) discount, you have to join the scheme applicable to the sector you are in and enter a Climate Change Agreement (CCA) which commits you to reduce your energy use.
The current schemes run from 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2027 and apply to 51 industry sectors, including the 3 sectors for which the NFU are the trade association: indoor pig production, poultry production (including eggs) and protected horticulture
Once you enter into a CCA, you must meet your energy efficiency targets to keep your CCA and continue to receive CCL discount.
The targets are set for your sector -- horticulture, pig or poultry -- and are applied equally to all participants in that sector. The overall reduction target must be achieved by 31st December 2024 and is based on 2024's performance to be compared with a "base year", which for most operators is 2018.
You have to report your energy and production data for each of the target periods to show whether or not you have achieved your target for the period.
If you don't achieve your targets, you have the option to either:
The 'buy out' option means you make a payment to the Government within six months of the end of the target period, calculated by converting the extra energy you used (over and above your target) into tonnes of CO2 emissions and then paying £25 for each tonne.
The target reductions in energy use per unit of production to be achieved by 31 December 2024, compared with 2018 are;
Energy efficiency is expressed as units of 'specific energy consumption' (SEC), defined as "The amount of energy consumed per unit of activity." This allows different time periods, businesses or sites to be compared.
A SEC value is calculated for your base year along with a target SEC value for each target period.
Not all of you use on your site will be eligible for CCL discount. A site consists of everything within a boundary where all energy crossing the boundary can be measured, regardless of who pays for or uses it.
So for instance with poultry, ventilation and heating of poultry buildings are eligible, but energy used in an office or workshop is not. Fortunately, you are allowed to have up to 30% non-eligible energy use and still have the entire site covered by a CCA to get CCL discount on the total energy supplied.
The processes that are eligible under the NFU CCL scheme are defined as follows:
At an installation or site where (in controlled, environment--protected structures) horticultural crops are grown, harvested and receive primary preparation for market: planting, seeding, heating, lighting, ventilating, irrigating, fertilising, cooling, preparing and sterilising growing media, grading and conveying.
Ineligible areas might be: domestic house, garden centre, office, staff accommodation and other staff facilities.
A facility belongs to the pig farming sector if it is a facility which is specifically used in indoor pig production.
Ineligible areas might be: domestic house, farm shop, office, staff facilities, feed preparation system not directly connected to buildings, other agriculture.
A facility belongs to the NFU poultry meat sector if it is a facility which is specifically used for rearing poultry for the production of meat. And/or a facility belongs to the egg production sector if it is a facility which is specifically used for rearing poultry for the production of eggs.
Ineligible areas might be: domestic house, farm shop, office and staff facilities, and feed preparation system not directly connected to buildings, egg packing area and other agriculture.
In order to join the scheme, you must complete and submit a Facility Eligibility Form which includes a description of your 'manufacturing' process and detailed plans of your site including your eligible process and its directly associated activities as well as other site activities that use energy.
In order to give an estimate of the value of the CCL discount to you and the costs and benefits of joining the scheme, you need to complete a Quotation Request Form. You provide details of your total site energy use for a 12 month period. At this stage a good estimate is sufficient. If you decide to apply to join the scheme, we will then ask you to provide accurate data. Please complete a separate form for each site you wish to enrol on the scheme.
