Britain permanently scraps 'green' costs for energy-intensive industry

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will permanently exclude energy-intensive industries such as steel and chemicals from extra costs to support green energy projects, Chancellor George Osborne said on Wednesday. Steelmakers in particular have been hit by heavy energy costs that make it harder for them to compete internationally, contributing to thousands of job cuts in the sector in recent weeks. Tata Steel, the biggest steelmaker in Britain, for instance said last month it may cut about 1,200 jobs as part of plans to restructure its struggling operations. "We're going to permanently exempt our energy intensive industries ... from the cost of environmental tariffs, so we keep their bills down, keep them competitive and keep them here," Osborne told Parliament in his autumn budget statement. Exemptions from those charges, which help pay for the construction of renewable energy plants like solar panels or wind farms, mean they will instead add 5 pounds ($7.55) per year to consumer energy bills, the government said. However, plans to reduce energy efficiency charges on suppliers and cuts to green energy subsidies will lower consumer energy bills by 30 pounds a year in 2017-18, the government added. (Reporting by Karolin Schaps; Editing by David Holmes)