Healey says he will veto new offshore wind projects that will not lower bills

Britain's chancellor, John Healey, has said he will veto new offshore wind projects if they will not lower bills, adding to concerns that the government is moving away from its pro-renewables agenda.

Announcing his plans, Healey said clean power is how Britain breaks the grip of international gas prices on its bills, but added that the shift has to come at the right pace, in the right places, with the grid to carry it.

Under the new approach, offshore wind projects bidding for subsidy contracts will only be signed off by ministers if they believe all the power generated could be accommodated by Britain's electricity grid without pushing up costs for consumers.

Writing in the Times, he said there is no sense building power that cannot connect and then paying to switch it off. He said the government will take that approach into its next renewables auction, only buying projects that can lower bills while strengthening energy security.

The move appears to be a further shift away from Labour's target of having clean power by 2030, after Healey revealed more than £3bn worth of cuts to the energy department's budget this week, much of which will pay for higher defence spending.

The cuts caused alarm among renewables experts, who warned they meant Britain was unlikely to hit its targets on green heating, and were seen as a dismantling of former energy secretary Ed Miliband's green agenda.

There is concern in government that wasted wind charges could add to energy bills, with the National Energy System Operator (Neso), which is funded through energy bills, being forced to pay wind turbines to switch off when there is not sufficient cabling capacity to transmit their power to consumers.

A National Audit Office report in September warned that homes and businesses could be faced with a potential annual bill of £7.8bn by 2030 to deal with the issue.

Healey appeared to pre-empt criticism of the plans. He said this is not a retreat from clean power but the credible route to it, and that cheaper electricity will make it easier for businesses and households to electrify, strengthening energy security and helping to decarbonise the wider economy.

He added that without the renewable generation added in recent years, this year's gas price shock would have hit families and firms even harder, and that those who want to rip up renewables would leave Britain more exposed to volatile markets and the dictators who exploit them.

One casualty of the budget cuts was a reduction in money for the scheme to subsidise heat pumps, leading to warnings that clean heating ambitions are being undermined. Under the scheme, a typical household can claim £7,500 towards a heat pump, with about 60,000 a year being fitted in existing homes; the government has a target to raise that to 250,000 a year by 2030, and was planning to increase the scheme's funding from £400m this year to just over £700m by 2029-30.

Much of the energy department cuts will come from the boiler upgrade scheme, the government's plan to incentivise people to replace gas boilers with electric heat pumps, including £741m from that scheme. Allies of Miliband and his successor, Miatta Fahnbulleh, insisted the government's green agenda remained as strong as ever, pointing to Healey's long-term move to shift green costs away from bills and on to taxpayers, something both energy secretaries have championed.

Healey announced on Wednesday that the government would fund the defence investment plan in part through cuts to other departments, much of which will come from the energy department.