ACTOR Peter Capaldi joined green groups yesterday to push for more offshore wind turbines to clean up Britain’s electricity grid.

Mr Calpaldi spoke as Greenpeace, the Marine Conservation Society and WWF kicked off a poster campaign at Westminster Tube station in London.

Electricity from offshore wind is now half as expensive as it was two years ago. It is already cheaper than the price promised to French state-owned EDF for power from Hinkley Point C — and the nuclear plant won’t start generating for over 10 years.

Offshore wind is three times more popular with the public than nuclear power and 20 times more popular than gas, a recent poll by Greenpeace found.

“It’s safe, secure, zero-carbon and economical. And it may just save the planet,” Mr Calpaldi said.

Actor Emma Thompson, who visited an offshore windfarm to help launch the campaign, said: “It’s creating thousands of jobs in regions where unemployment has been, of late, very high.”

Recent auctions, where firms try to bid the lowest for guaranteed electricity prices from wind farms, put the price at £57.50 per kilowatt hour — £35 cheaper than Hinkley C — for projects that will start generating in five or six years.

“This should please ministers across the spectrum from industry, the environment and the Treasury. Even No 10 should be popping the champagne at this great news,” said Greenpeace executive director John Sauven.

The Tories have been condemned for their “dogmatic” opposition to renewables. Onshore wind is the cheapest, but the Tories scrapped subsidies from last year and have made it very difficult to get planning approval.

Cuts to subsidies for solar power in 2015 caused the loss of more than half of that sector’s 35,000 jobs.