The UK government has agreed a new funding arrangement with the controversial wood-burning Drax power station that it says will cut subsidies in half. …The new agreement will run from 2027 to 2031 and will see the power station only used as a back-up to cheaper renewable sources of power. …The government says the company currently receives nearly a billion pounds a year in subsidies and and predicts that figure will more than halve to £470m under the new deal. …The new agreement also states that 100% of the wood pellets Drax burns must be “sustainably sourced” and that “material sourced from primary and old growth forests” will not be able to receive support payments. All the pellets Drax burns are imported, with most of them coming from the USA and Canada. BBC has previously reported that Drax held logging licences in British Columbia, and used wood, including whole trees, from primary forests for its pellets.