The government has published details of its long-awaited Energy Bill, which is designed to keep lights on while driving emissions down.
This will allow energy firms to charge households an extra £7.6 billion until 2020, with the money going towards the development of low-carbon electricity generation.
A decision on setting carbon emission targets for 2030 has been delayed until 2016, after the next general election.
Fears have since been expressed about the impact on bills and whether this delay will put off investors in new energy-saving plants.
The independent advisory committee on climate change estimates the £7.6 billion in charges that the plan allows for will add around £110 to the average household by 2020.
This means that people may want to try and get hold of energy-efficient ceiling spotlights of chrome ceiling lights as a way of keeping running costs down.
DECC (The Department for Energy and Climate Change) has a lower estimate of £95, which would represent seven per cent rise on current prices.
"With a fifth of the UK's electricity generating capacity due to close this decade, reforms are needed to provide certainty to investors to bring forward £110 billion investment in new infrastructure to keep the lights on and continue the shift to a diverse, low carbon economy as cheaply as possible", the government said on announcing the Bill.
Labour leader Ed Miliband claimed the government had made the wrong decision for the environment and the economy, stating that it had done a "deal" rather than coming up with the best plan.
This sentiment was supported by a number of environmental groups.
Executive director of Greenpeace John Sauven added that by failing to agree to any carbon target for the power sector until after the next election, the prime minister David Cameron has allowed certain parts of his own party to "derail the Energy Bill".
