Investors will receive further certainty of how the government will support investment in new energy infrastructure through the Energy Bill, in order to keep the lights on and bills and emissions down.

The draft Electricity Market Reform Delivery Plan, published today for consultation, provides detail on the support mechanism (long-term Contracts for Difference) and draft strike prices for renewables investors, which together will help incentivise up to £110bn of investment in new electricity infrastructure by 2020.

Secretary of State, Edward Davey, said of the draft Delivery Plan: "No other sector is equal in scale to the British power market, in terms of the opportunity that it offers to investors, and the scale of the infrastructure challenge.

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"The Delivery Plan will provide investors with further certainty of government's intent, so that they can get on and make crucial investment decisions that are supporting green jobs and growth.

"The strike prices we have set will make the UK market one of the most attractive for developers and investors in renewable energy.

"It is necessary to support technologies in the early stages of their development, but we are looking all the time at how we reduce the costs for consumers.

"The new support mechanism we are introducing for renewables will make it cheaper to deliver low-carbon generation by around £5 billion up to 2030.

"This will put the UK one step ahead in the global race to develop clean technologies, and will support up to 250,000 jobs across the energy sector.

"As well as being good for green jobs and growth, what we are doing will protect our environment. The new strike prices will mean that renewables can contribute more than 30% of our power mix by 2020, putting us on track to seeing significant decarbonisation of the power sector by 2030 and meeting our wider climate targets."

(CD/JP)