The UK has given more than £12.5bn from energy bills to fossil fuel power plants in the past decade through a government scheme to keep the lights on during winter, according to new analysis.
The research found that, since 2015, the government has offered contracts worth £20bn through a “capacity market” to create a backup reserve of generators on standby, of which about 60% were fossil fuel power plants and a quarter were energy storage and power cable projects.
