The grant to a subsidiary of Elsam, a Danish energy giant that is being taken over by the Danish state, will help to pay for a wind farm four miles offshore in Liverpool Bay.

This weekend the manager of the project admitted it would have gone ahead with or without the lottery cash. "The project in itself is viable without the grant," said Adrian Maddocks. "I think it was just pot luck."

However, Phil Ruffles, an expert on energy supply and a former vice-president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: "I’m not sure lottery money was ever intended to subsidise electrical supply. It sounds like a bit of a cheat."

The £10m is part of £50m awarded by the lottery to renewable energy schemes. It has granted £18m to the British subsidiary of the German firm E.ON to construct a biomass-fuelled power station in Lockerbie.

The Buccleuch Group, a company owned by the Duke of Buccleuch, one of Britain’s largest landowners, has been awarded a lottery grant of £572,000 to help pay for "biomass heat clusters" — furnaces burning waste from the duke’s estates.

Construction of the offshore wind farm is to begin later this year on what is known as the Burbo Bank. The project will eventually see the erection of 25 wind turbines, each about 425ft high. The cost is expected to be around £120m and the scheme will provide power for about 70,000 homes on Merseyside.The lottery grant of £10.4m was awarded to SeaScape Energy, which is owned by Elsam. Last week Elsam announced profits after tax of more than £130m on a turnover of £1.1 billion.

Opposition politicians, environmentalists and campaigners against wind farms have all rounded on the decision to award the cash. Ruffles said wind farms, like other renewable energy sources, already received significant subsidies from the taxpayer.

Hugo Swire, the Tory shadow secretary for culture, media and sport, said: "We all recognise the need to tackle global warming, but what justification can there be for spending national lottery money on a Danish-owned wind farm?"

A spokesman for the Big Lottery Fund said the Burbo project would also have a "positive social impact" by creating jobs in the Liverpool area.

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