ScottishPower, together with the other five UK major energy suppliers, has agreed to the Government's plans to increase current investment in the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) by 20% between 2008 and 2011 amounting to an extra investment of £560m across the industry.

ScottishPower will also contribute to the new Community Energy Saving Programme, which is similar to the CERT obligation. This represents an another increase of 12.5 % to the CERT programme which will be split between the other five energy suppliers and the UK's independent electricity generators - representing a separate rise for the industry of £350m.

Together with the other measures announced by the Government last week, this amounts to an additional contribution of £910m from the energy industry through until 2011 on increasing the energy efficiency of UK homes.

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ScottishPower recently became the first company to achieve the Government's Energy Efficiency Commitment (EEC) targets - the programme that preceeded CERT. To achieve this target, ScottishPower spent £150m between 2005 and 2008 to provide long term energy efficient measures to UK households including installing over 420,000 cavity wall and loft insulations as well as distributing over 5 million energy efficient light bulbs.

ScottishPower Chief Executive, Nick Horler, said: "After exhaustive and unprecedented discussions with the Government, ScottishPower has agreed to meet the considerable financial and logistical challenge outlined.

"The combined impact of these two increases to the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target on top of our already significant commitments, amounts to a spend on energy efficiency that totals almost £4Bn over 3 years."

'Now these measures have finally been agreed, it is time to move on and focus on the urgent need to replace the UK's ageing generation fleet by undertaking the largest generation investment programme in UK history. The Governments own estimates suggest that over £100 bn of investment is required over the next 10 years to ensure the UK's security of supply beyond 2015.

"As part of the Iberdrola Group, ScottishPower is committed to invest £2.8bn in the UK over the next 2 years alone in renewable energy, improving the network and environmental improvements in traditional generation. Since the integration with Iberdrola, every £1 of profit is being re-invested into new projects in the UK."

(GK/JM)