Shops and factories will be paid to ration electricity to avoid nationwide power blackouts under a drastic government plan announced yesterday.
Household energy bills would have to rise to compensate companies for turning off lighting and machinery during winter nights.
It comes after the regulator Ofgem said that the risk of blackouts had doubled in less than a year because not enough new power stations were being built to replace old coal and gas plants.
The warning undermined the Government’s attempt to show that Britain could modernise its infrastructure even in the grip of austerity.
Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, set out £100 billion worth of infrastructure spending between 2015 and 2020 including:
* £70 billion on transport projects, £20 billion on