UK backs biggest English onshore windfarm in a decade among 190 green energy projects
The largest onshore windfarm in England in a decade has been awarded a government subsidy among 190 contracts for renewable energy projects, as Labour attempts to hit a goal of creating a virtually zero carbon power grid within four years.The government said it would offer contracts to a record number of solar projects alongside support for onshore windfarms including the huge Imerys project near St Austell in Cornwall.The project will be the largest to be built in England since Labour lifted an almost decade-long de facto ban on new onshore windfarms after returning to power in 2024.The ban caused England’s onshore wind industry to collapse, and the Imerys project – developed by Clean Earth Energy – at 20 megawatts is dwarfed by many Scottish onshore windfarms that won contracts in the latest auction, the largest of which is 186 MW.It will generate a fraction of the electricity of the 480MW West Burton solar farm, which also won a contract in the auction and will be the largest solar project ever supported by the UK government.
In total, contracts were awarded to 157 new solar farms, 28 new onshore windfarms and eight offshore windfarms after ministers doubled the amount of funding available to developers in a make-or-break auction for Labour’s goal to create a clean electricity system in Great Britain by 2030.The government also issued subsidy contracts to four tidal power projects.The winners were informed on Tuesday morning, three weeks after the government awarded subsidy contracts to enough offshore windfarms to power 12m homes by the end of the decade.In total, the government’s new renewable energy contracts will supply enough electricity to power the equivalent of 16m UK homes.Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, said: “These results show once again that clean British power is the right choice for our country, agreeing a price for new onshore wind and solar that is more than 50% cheaper than the cost of building and operating new gas.
”Under the latest contracts, solar farms will be paid £65.23 a megawatt hour (MWh) in 2024 prices, while onshore windfarms will earn £72.24/MWh.If prices on the wholesale electricity market are below this price then developers will receive top-up payments levied on household energy bills, but if the market price is higher, bill payers will have the difference returned to them.The subsidy prices for solar power are slightly lower than last year’s auction when projects were offered £69.
76/MWh for their electricity, while onshore wind contracts are slightly higher.In last year’s auction round, onshore wind developers were offered £70.92/MWh.The rising cost of wind power, which is up by more than 20% from its record lows in 2022, reflects the “changed macroeconomic conditions and supply chain pressures” facing the industry, according to Simon Virley, the head of energy at KPMG UK.Virley said the auction “seems to have revealed a ‘new normal’ for the cost of large-scale onshore renewables” and it was no longer possible to bank on prices continuing to fall.
“Despite this, onshore wind and solar remain the cheapest large-scale renewables available to meet the 2030 target, with prices well below the costs of offshore wind, new-build gas or new nuclear,” he said.The support prices for onshore renewables are well below those offered to offshore windfarms.Standard windfarms fixed to the seafloor will earn between £89.49/MWh and £91.20/MWh through the latest auction and a new generation of floating windfarms will earn £216.
49/MWh.Miliband said: “By backing solar and onshore wind at scale, we’re driving bills down for good and protecting families, businesses and our country from the fossil fuel rollercoaster controlled by petrostates and dictators.This is how we take back control of our energy and deliver a new era of energy abundance and independence.”
Barclays boss ‘shocked’ by Epstein revelations; BP annual profits slump 16% – as it happened
The chief executive of Barclays has said he is “deeply dismayed and shocked” at the “depravity and the corruption” revealed in the Epstein files, as the bank deals with the fallout of its ex-boss Jes Staley’s ties to the convicted child sex offender.In his first public comments on the matter since the US Department of Justice began publishing documents related to Jeffrey Epstein in December, CS Venkatakrishnan said his thoughts went out to the victims of Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting child sex trafficking charges. He said:I’m very, very deeply dismayed and shocked by the moral depravity and the corruption that you’re reading about in the latest set of instalments. You know, my heart really goes out to victims of this scandal and these crimes.However, the Barclays boss – speaking as the bank reported annual profits – stopped short of commenting directly on allegations against his predecessor, Staley
AstraZeneca CEO hails NHS drug price deal but keeps pause on £200m UK investment
The boss of Britain’s biggest pharmaceutical company has said the government’s recent drug pricing deal is a “very positive step” but is unlikely to unfreeze a paused £200m investment in Cambridge.AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, suggested that a UK-US deal on NHS pricing agreed in December would not be “sufficient” to restart the project to build a research site in the east of England, which was paused in September.Soriot, who has rebuilt the company’s drugs pipeline since 2012 and turned it into the UK’s most valuable listed business, also described the US as “the most attractive market in the world”.During Keir Starmer’s visit to Beijing two weeks ago, AstraZeneca announced $15bn (£11bn) of investments in China, its second-biggest market, and is also pouring $50bn into US factories and labs by 2030.The British drugmaker listed its shares in New York and they began trading on 2 February, but it kept its main stock listing in London
Will the Gulf’s push for its own AI succeed?
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. Today in tech, we’re discussing the Persian Gulf countries making a play for sovereignty over their own artificial intelligence in response to an unstable United States. That, and US tech giants’ plans to spend more than $600bn this year alone.I spent most of last week in Doha at the Web Summit Qatar, the Persian Gulf’s new version of the popular annual tech conference. One theme stood out among the speeches I watched and the conversations I had: sovereignty
Apple and Google pledge not to discriminate against third-party apps in UK deal
Apple and Google have committed to avoid discriminating against apps that compete with their own products under an agreement with the UK’s competition watchdog, as they avoided legally binding measures for their mobile platforms.The US tech companies have vowed to be more transparent about vetting third-party apps before letting them on their app stores and not discriminate against third-party apps in app search rankings.They have also agreed not to use data from third-party apps unfairly, such as using information about app updates to tweak their own offerings.Apple has also committed to giving app developers an easier means of requesting use of its features such as the digital wallet, and live translation for AirPod users.The commitments have been secured as part of a new regulatory regime overseen by the Competition and Markets Authority, (CMA), which has the power to impose changes on how Apple and Google operate their mobile platforms after deciding last year that they had “substantial, entrenched” market power
Winter Olympics 2026 day four: more golds for Italy, Norway and Sweden; GB curling heartache – live
This is our top 10 after two runs:It’ll take something for oner of the top two to avoid taking gold; there’s a battle for that, then a battle for bronze.Anyroad up, it’s 0-0 with 10 to go in the first; elsewhere, we’re four minutes away from the resumption of the women’s luge singles. I should say, currently Italy lead Germany by a point, so if this match is a draw they’ll finish higher and take on second place in Group A.Both teams are already into the last eight, but the winner will avoid the winner of Group A – though you’d not back either to even run USA or Canada, the two teams in contention, close.We’re under way in our Italy v Germany Group B women’s ice hockey…Goodness me
‘My needles are waiting’: Ben Ogden credits knitting habit after cross-country silver
Ben Ogden delivered the most significant result in US men’s cross-country skiing in decades on Tuesday afternoon, winning Olympic silver in the men’s sprint classic at the Milano Cortina Games to end a 50-year medal drought.The mustachioed 25-year-old finished in 3min 40.61sec after surging through the final with his trademark classical technique, less than a second behind Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who secured the seventh Olympic gold medal of his career in 3:39.74. Klæbo’s teammate Oskar Opstad Vike took bronze after climbing from 20th in qualifying to the podium
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