Business minister Greg Clark will today launch the first phase of a £246m investment into battery technology, part of the government’s industrial strategy that was published in January. Clark will use a speech to unveil “the Faraday Challenge”, a competition to establish a centre for battery research which “will – quite literally – power the automotive and energy revolution where, already, the UK is leading the world”. The funding will include a £45m competition to make batteries more accessible and affordable, says the Guardian. The rapidly-falling cost of battery power is expected mean radical changes to “the way Britain is able to make use of its renewable energy generation, by storing excess wind and solar for when wind speeds slip and sunshine wanes,” the Telegraph says. New rules will also make it easier for people to generate their own power with solar panels, store it in batteries and sell it to the National Grid, reports the BBC. The rules are due to come into effect over the next year. The Sunday Times and Mail Online also have the story.

President Trump will nominate coal lobbyist and former Senate aide, Andrew Wheeler, to serve as the Environmental Protection Agency’s deputy administrator, according to two senior administration officials. Wheeler is a lobbyist for Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting, whose clients include coal mining company Murray Energy, and he has served as a top aide for Senator James M. Inhofe – a vocal sceptic of human-caused climate change – when Inhofe chaired the Senate Environment Committee. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is also preparing to pick three conservatives to head three key divisions within the agency. The Hill also has the story. Meanwhile, another article in the Post looks at past tweets of new White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, finding that he lamented that some people did not accept the scientific consensus on climate change. Last year, he tweeted that it was “disheartening” that so many people dismissed climate change as a “hoax”, and urged his Twitter followers not to “stand on the wrong side of history”. However, since being hired as an advisor to Trump, Scaramucci’s certainty has changed, says the Post. In an interview in December he said: “We get a lot of things wrong in the scientific community. You and I both know that. I’m not suggesting that we’re not affecting the change. I honestly don’t know. I’m not a scientist.” And finally, a third article in the Post reports that the full Senate is set to vote on Trump’s nominee for deputy interior secretary, David Bernhardt, amid claims he is a “a walking conflict of interest” because he recently worked for a lobbying firm representing energy interests.

The pace of green jobs growth in the UK has slowest to its lowest level in five years, according to data compiled by the Renewable Energy Association. The number of jobs in wind, solar, biofuel and other clean power companies rose to just under 126,000 last year, new figures show, a record amount for the sector. However, this is only a 2.5% rise from the previous year, the smallest increase since 2012 and well below the 9% jump in 2014. Businesses across the UK energy sector have grown increasingly frustrated by delays on policy decisions affecting future investments, says the FT. “What is deeply frustrating is that this growth could have been greater,” said Nina Skorupska, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association. “Policy instability in Westminster, however, has slowed growth.”

Wind power output in Scotland set new records for wind generation in June and for the first six months of the year, according to analysis by WWF Scotland. During June, Scottish wind turbines provided enough electricity to meet the average needs of 118% of households. And enough power was generated in the first six months of this year to supply more than all of Scotland’s national demand for a total of six days, says The National. The figures for January to June this year shows an increase of 24% compared to 2015, notes The Scotsman. Meanwhile, the BBC reports that the world’s first full-scale floating wind farm has started to take shape off the north-east coast of Scotland. And elsewhere, a new report from engineering firm Arup suggests that onshore windfarms could be built in the UK for the same cost as new gas power stations and would be nearly half as expensive as the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, as covered by the Guardian. Arup found that wind energy has become so cheap that developers could deliver turbines for a guaranteed price of power so low that it would be effectively subsidy-free in terms of the impact on household energy bills.

Nigeria and Libya should join the deal to cut global oil production agreed by Opec and Russia as soon as their output stabilises, says Russian energy minister Alexander Novak. Russia, Saudi Arabia and other Opec members agreed late last year to reduce production, in a bid to prop up the market. However, the impact of this cut has been reduced by a “dramatic recovery” in production from Opec members Libya and Nigeria – who were exempt from the deal at the time – as well as a rebound in the US shale industry. Speaking ahead of an Opec meeting in St Petersburg, Novak told the FT that “We believe that once oil output in Libya and Nigeria stabilises, there will be less uncertainty on the market as to their future moves.” Novak added that the countries that had agreed to take part in the production cut agreement “have been very assiduous in honouring their commitments”. However, the Times reports that the St Petersburg meeting comes “amid growing evidence that some members of the Opec club of 14 exporters have ceased complying fully with a deal.” In other oil-related articles, the FT reports that US oil output growth has been hit by a lack of operators and equipment, and that new buyers “are piling into” Mexico’s oil industry after it was recently opened up to foreign companies for the first time since it was nationalised in the 1930s.

“It is not surprising that some of the strongest critics of Donald Trump’s decision to extract the US from the 2015 Paris accord on climate change have been energy firms,” writes Mike Fox in the Sunday Telegraph business section. That “big names in the oil industry have already begun to dip their toes in the green pool…isn’t merely an ideological crusade,” he writes. “The commitment to a longer-term business model is clear…Renewables are beginning to look like an attractive business regardless of any government incentives still available.” “Naysayers, climate deniers and protectionists may balk,” Fox says, but “the smart money is on a future that is going to be more, not less green.”

With the world’s bankers “quivering in anticipation” ahead of next year’s initial public offering (IPO) for Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil group Saudi Aramco, John Dizzard looks at the arguments for and against making an investment. The main consideration for investors is the impact of US shale producers on oil and gas prices, says Dizzard, but “the tide of cheap shale oil and gas will recede only when the capital markets stop wiring funds to the producers,” he notes. “There are two bets involved in the listing,” Dizzard concludes: “Can Saudi Arabia contain the social and strategic pressures caused by cheap oil? And will the capital markets eventually stop subsidising shale producers?”

Climate models are becoming increasingly relied upon to inform climate change adaptation, yet progress in development is lagging behind in many of the regions which need the information most – such as Africa. Drawing on the expertise of a team of scientists from Central, East, Southern, and West Africa, a new paper discusses which model processes are most important for Africa and how they might be evaluated. This is “intended to prompt further discussion among climate modellers and African scientists about how to best evaluate models with an African lens,” the researchers say.