2026 so far averages roughly what the chart shows above DESNZ's reference line — the department's own projection is a policy-conditioned central case, not a probability, and the shaded band is the span between its low and high fossil-fuel-price scenarios, nothing more.
Outturn is LCCC's Intermittent Market Reference Price (IMRP, see the capture-price
methodology below), annual mean. The reference line and low-to-high band are DESNZ's Energy and Emissions
Projections, Annex M, wholesale baseload electricity price — three of Annex M's six published
scenarios (Reference, FFP_Low, FFP_High; the other three vary GDP
growth rather than fossil-fuel prices and aren't drawn here), vintage 2026-02
(an earlier vintage, 2024-12, is also on
file but not shown). DESNZ publishes Annex M in 2024 prices; both that
series and IMRP's own nominal-at-the-time history are rebased here into
2026
money using HM Treasury's GDP deflator — the same series DESNZ itself uses to
state Annex M's own basis. Not on this chart: the ICE forward curve and any third-party analyst scenario,
both proprietary data this project has no access to.
| Round | Base year | Projects | Capacity (MW) | Avg strike price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AR1 | 2012 | 17 | 1,910 | £103.77/MWh |
| AR2 | 2012 | 3 | 3,196 | £62.14/MWh |
| AR3 | 2012 | 10 | 5,741 | £40.64/MWh |
| AR4 | 2012 | 21 | 8,462 | £38.68/MWh |
| AR5 | 2012 | 25 | 1,704 | £52.29/MWh |
| AR6 | 2012 | 32 | 6,332 | £61.59/MWh |
| AR7 | 2024 | 40 | 9,744 | £90.89/MWh |
| Round | Base year | Projects | Capacity (MW) | Avg strike price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AR1 | 2012 | 5 | 72 | £65.80/MWh |
| AR4 | 2012 | 66 | 2,209 | £45.99/MWh |
| AR5 | 2012 | 56 | 1,928 | £47.00/MWh |
| AR6 | 2012 | 93 | 3,288 | £50.07/MWh |
| AR7 | 2024 | 157 | 4,905 | £65.23/MWh |
Capacity-weighted average strike price per round, from LCCC's own published Allocation Round results. Rounds are not on a common price basis — AR1–AR6 are quoted in 2012 real prices, AR7 in 2024 real prices (confirmed against government CfD policy documents; AR6 figures need inflating by roughly 39% just to sit on AR7's own basis). These figures are not converted to a common basis or to nominal terms here, and are not directly comparable to the capture price/IMRP figures below without adjusting for that yourself. AR8 bidding closed in August 2026; results aren't published yet.
Capture price is the volume-weighted average price a technology's actual generation achieved (sum of generation × price per half-hour, divided by total generation) against LCCC's Intermittent Market Reference Price (IMRP) — the reference price LCCC itself uses to calculate CfD top-up payments for wind/solar generators, calculated from day-ahead data received from both EPEX Spot and NordPool. Baseload price is the plain time-average IMRP price over the same window. This project's other pages (Live Market's Fundamentals tab) use a different series, Elexon's Market Index Data, for day-ahead price — that series is, in practice, a single-exchange (APXMIDP) proxy, which is why this page uses IMRP instead. Both capture price and baseload here are nominal — whatever IMRP actually settled at, at the time, with no adjustment for inflation. The Long-term price outlook card above reads from this same IMRP series but rebases it into today's money via HM Treasury's GDP deflator, so a past year's IMRP figure will read higher there than the nominal figure this section would show for the same year — both are correct, on their own stated basis, not a discrepancy. Wind curtailment is instructed-off volume via the Balancing Mechanism, already ingested for the Live Market Generation tab's "true wind outturn" figure.