Renewable Energy

Handful of gas plants paid £4m to generate electricity at half- and full-time in World Cup game

• Europe heatwave live – latest updates

• Business live – latest updates

A handful of Great Britain’s gas power plants were paid almost £4m to generate electricity for just a few hours on Tuesday evening as millions of sweltering viewers turned to air conditioning, electric fans and icy drinks during England’s second World Cup game.

The heatwave has caused electricity prices across Europe to surge this week amid higher demand for cooling and a string of power plant outages due to the record high temperatures.

Climate Change Committee chair Nigel Topping says U-turns damage investor confidence and disrupt businesses

Weakening the UK’s net zero policy would disrupt business and damage the economy, the UK’s chief climate adviser has warned.

Nigel Topping, chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said: “The U-turns are really damaging to inward investor confidence. If we really want to grow the economy, then investing and getting good at building stuff is essential.”

Energy secretary hails £100bn milestone in this parliament and says it is ‘only the start of what we want to achieve’

Ed Miliband has hailed a boost to UK jobs and growth as government data reveals that private sector companies have pledged more than £100bn in investment into the green economy so far in this parliament.

Offshore wind, solar power and the electricity grid make up the bulk of the planned investment, most of it between 2024 and 2031, which will go to all regions of the UK and comes from a mixture of UK companies and overseas sources including the EU and Japan.

The PM said in May that ‘stories beat spreadsheets’, but what does the data tell us about his time in office?

Keir Starmer is to step down as prime minister after just two years in office.

Despite promising an end to Conservative sleaze and scandal, much political bandwidth towards the end of his time in No 10 was taken up by the fallout surrounding his appointment as US ambassador of Peter Mandelson, who had a close relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Smaller, cheaper cars built for narrow city streets are becoming more stylish – but require careful design decisions

The winding backstreets of London, Paris and Rome are a large part of their charm. But they are also a problem for electric carmakers. For a long time, squeezing big batteries into smaller, cheaper cars to fit European streets was too much of a problem, so manufacturers focused on bloated SUVs instead.

But that is finally changing. Battery technology has improved and Europe’s carmakers havecut manufacturing costs enough that they can now sell cars that might have a chance of fitting down a medieval lane or two.