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The government are more directly involved in offshore wind.

* The Government own the sea bed (via Crown Estates) and are effectively the landlord of the wind farm.

* The secretary of state has the final say on planning permission and can "act in the national interest". They can also reject the scheme based on politics or ideology.

* The subsidy for new schemes is based on a shadowy auction process (CfD) where the Government choose which schemes get money.

In a practical sense the Government are aggressively pushing offshore wind.

The economic effect is to restrict subsidy payments to very large producers and cut out smaller suppliers who could produce energy more cheaply. Of course offshore wind will be more predictable and much less contentious. It also has the potential to fund development of support services and port facilities.