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4 | 20th - 26th June 2014 | utILItY WeeK National media Offshore wind investment the Crown estate this week announced record investment in the offshore wind sector. £750m worth of investment is expected in 2014 10 per cent of the uK's electricity demand could be met by offshore wind generation in 2020. £30bn has been invested in offshore wind 4 GW of capacity is operating as a result 1,465 wind turbines are in operation or under construction UK nuclear body faces £200m damages claim Britain's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is facing a £200 million damages claim from one of the bidders who lost out on a £7 billion deal to clean up Britain's oldest nuclear power plants. Energy Solutions, a Salt Lake City-based company, filed a High Court writ last week aer losing the 14-year contract to engineering company Babcock and Texas- based Fluor. The deal is one of the largest government contracts ever put out to tender. The Financial Times Germany investigates sale of RWE unit Amid rising concern in the EU over energy secu- rity, the German government has launched a probe into the planned €5.1 billion sale of oil and gas assets by energy group RWE to an investment company controlled by Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman. The Financial Times UK 'should subsidise foreign power plants' British consumers should subsi- dise power plants on the continent because it could help bring down energy bills, think tank Policy Exchange has argued. In a report on Thursday, the group says that foreign power plants should be allowed to com- pete for subsidies in the govern- ment's new capacity market, due to be launched later this year. It claims this will encourage the construction of new power inter- connector cables to the continent, which could lower energy bills by as much as £1 billion by giving Brit- ish consumers access to cheaper European wholesale energy prices. The Telegraph stOry by NUMbErs The Green Deal's golden rule, whereby any measures installed must save more than they cost, will be made more "flexible", according to the climate change minister. Appearing in front of the Energy and Climate Change select committee on Tuesday (17 June), Greg Barker said the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) and the Green Deal Finance Company (GDFC) were looking at ways to allow more expensive meas- ures to fit into the Green Deal structure. Barker said "top-up loans" were being discussed as a way to allow measures that currently do not comply with the golden rule to become eligible. He told MPs: "It won't allow you to bust the golden rule but it will allow you to do it in addi- tion to it, but without encumber- ing the next purchaser of the property with payments that outstrip the savings." Barker added that it was a "priority" to include feed-in tariff and Renewable Heat Incen- tive payments into the golden rule calculation, because this would also allow more expen- sive energy efficiency measures to be eligible under Green Deal finance plans. He said: "I think that would make a very big difference" Further changes mooted included changing the length of time a Green Deal finance plan has to be taken out over, allow- ing this to be shorter than the current 25 year period. The climate change minister added: "We want to be as flex- ible as possible and I think the GDFC has shown a good degree of flexibility in listening to the market." Seven days... Green Deal golden rule to be made more flexible £3.75m the funding awarded to Scottish firm Nova Innovation, alongside Belgium's ELSA, by Scottish enterprise to help develop a tidal array. "Switching is changing and customers are taking advantage of the wide range of deals available to them" Energy UK chief executive Angela Knight commenting on recent findings that more than half of those switching energy companies are opting for small suppliers.