The Government is considering incentivising the development of new renewable energy projects that would be connected to Britain’s electricity systems but located outside the UK.

That means the Contracts for Difference (CfDs) scheme could be opened up to foreign developers, which DECC believes could help improve energy security as well as reduce the cost of investment in low carbon technologies through greater competition.

However, it has outlined a number of issues that would need to be reviewed before offering the contracts for direct import of green electricity.

DECC states: “Opening the CfD scheme to projects located outside the UK, with the challenges and complexities that this carries, will require most aspects of the EMR policy design to be reviewed, notably the allocation of CfDs, the CfD contract itself and the supporting institutional framework.”

While the application for UK CfDs will open this autumn, non-UK developers will only be able to start bidding “from 2018 at the earliest”, the Government said.