PowerSwitch

A ceiling of £200m a year will be placed on subsidies to some of the major forms of renewable energy from this autumn, affecting the funding of large-scale low-carbon installations from wind and solar farms to biomass-burning power plants.

The money will be available under the coalition's new “contracts for difference”, which subsidise renewable energy companies who offer electricity at a lower rate of carbon emissions than fossil fuel generators, and are paid for by levies on household energy bills.