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.

Generator’s shares rise as regulator finds no evidence of misleading statements about fuel’s sustainability

The City watchdog has closed an investigation into the owner of the Drax power plant after an almost 10-month review into whether the company’s sustainability claims mislead shareholders.

The Financial Conduct Authority said it had “reviewed thousands of pages” of “complex material” relating to the company’s sourcing of wood pellets for the Drax power plant in Selby, North Yorkshire, but “did not find evidence that justified any further action”.

Asda, Amazon and B&Q among retailers in talks to sell devices that feed into household sockets and can cut electricity bills by 30%

• Spanish homes save €10 a month via renewables expansion

Bosses of some of Britain’s biggest retailers are discussing plans with the government to start selling plug-in solar panels as part of a drive to encourage more UK homes to generate their own electricity.

Executives from brands including Currys, B&Q and Amazon met Martin McCluskey, the minister for energy consumers, on Tuesday to discuss guidelines for selling “balcony solar panels” to the British public.

The 700 projects include wind and solar farms, battery storage, gas and hydro plans

More than half the renewable energy projects needed to meet the government’s clean power targets by 2030 are now able to plug into the electricity grid after years of delay, according to the system operator.

The National Energy System Operator (Neso) has offered more than 700 clean energy projects in Great Britain a grid connection date since the start of the year, after a two-year process to unblock a bottleneck that threatened to delay projects into the 2030s.