The new Labour government has boosted the budget for an upcoming renewable energy auction to £1.5bn after last year’s auction failed to attract any bids.

Contracts for Difference auctions invite companies to bid to develop renewable energy projects in the UK and give them a guaranteed minimum price for the electricity they will generate. The system also means that if electricity prices in the future rise above that level, the companies pay the excess back to the treasury.

But the last auction in September attracted no developers, with the industry saying that the government had set the price too low to make new projects worth pursuing.

Energy secretary Ed Miliband today announced that the budget for this year’s renewable energy auction is being increased by £500m to over £1.5bn as part of efforts to build new green infrastructure.

Some £1.1bn of this is dedicated solely to offshore wind, which will now have more budget available than all of the previous auctions combined.

Figures from June...