Subsidies for foreign green power companies in the UK criticised

Energy companies from Europe, the US and China would receive over £100 billion in subsidies from British consumers to pay for a new generation of offshore wind farms, Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) said.

The money would go to the owners of nine giant wind farms which are under construction in the seas around Britain.

The wind farms, built on a scale not seen before, would attract subsidies totaling more than £6 billion a year, an analysis by an energy think tank showed, which would equate to £120 billion over the 20-year lifespan of an offshore turbine.

With around 90 per cent of the wind farms under foreign ownership companies abroad would receive around £100 billion by way of subsidies, with the subsidies paid for through additional sums added on to consumer electricity bills. The figures have been disputed by the wind industry.

The subsidies that were put in place by the Labour government for encouraging the building of wind farms had been slammed for being far too generous.

Under current payment structures the energy companies would receive twice the amount from subsidies than they received from the actual electricity they produced.

REF, a think tank that campaigns against wind energy costs, has criticised the scale of subsidies after analysing the costs.