UK government to spend $227 million on diesel subsidy

• 8 years ago (2015-12-12)

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The news comes during the Paris Climate Change Conference, and the UK government has faced intense criticism for actively backing the use of diesel and coal stations as part of its back-up power strategy.

Energy companies had won contracts to build 575 MW of new diesel-driven capacity, according to CO2 reduction campaigner, Sandberg. There were contracts for an unspecified number of coal plants, despite the government promising to phase them out a few weeks ago.

The head of energy and resources at the Green Alliance think-thank, Dustin Benton, said: “Amber Rudd deserves praise for deciding to phase out coal, and it’s now clear that she needs to reform our outdated capacity market… Continuing to give hundreds of millions of pounds to coal is perverse and unnecessary. The UK can keep the lights on without coal if we get rid of the capacity market’s bias against demand response and push ahead with new energy efficiency policy.”