Turbines to power new energy plans

Business Secretary John Hutton acknowledged that the "green" power plants would cost more money and take up more land than conventional electricity generation, but said Britain had "no choice" about moving to lower-carbon energy.

Sticking to fossil fuels for electricity generation would be more expensive in the long run, because of the cost of climate change, he said.

Mr Hutton is due to outline measures to build up Britain's clean power supply in order to reach the EU-imposed target of producing 15% of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2020.

And Prime Minister Gordon Brown will signal that he is prepared to take on public opinion over green taxes, insisting that a low carbon society will not emerge from a "business as usual" approach.

"It will require real leadership from Government - being prepared to make hard decisions on planning or on tax for example," he will say in a speech in London.

Mr Hutton told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Unless we are prepared to make this big shift in the way we generate energy, we are going to stack up bigger costs, inflict greater environmental damage in Britain and the rest of the world.

"It is absolutely imperative that we take as much carbon as possible out of the way we generate energy and this road-map that we are publishing today is the first instalment about how we think we can get there by 2020."

Launching a consultation on the Government's new renewable energy strategy, ministers are expected to say that radical steps are needed to diversify energy supplies, adding that achieving the 15% target will be nothing short of a "national endeavour".

Up to half of the target will have to come from electricity, meaning a third will have to be generated from renewables by 2020, which will call for a massive wind energy building programme.