Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps she plans to take to increase renewable energy generation when the renewables obligation scheme ends in 2017.

We have announced our intention to hold three Contract for Difference (CfD) allocation rounds during this Parliament, supporting large scale renewable projects at a far lower cost to the consumer than under the renewables obligation. Provided cost reductions are made, this could support to 10GW of new offshore wind in the 2020s.

We are considering how we can best ensure a level playing field between renewable and other generation technologies and we are listening to ideas from industry about how this can be achieved. A number of stakeholders have suggested the concept of a market stabilising CFD for pot 1 technologies and welcome thoughts on this.