Price of carbon and other incentives for renewable energy need to be boosted if the authorities want Drax, the UK's biggest coal-based power plant, to shift to environment friendly fuels, the company's Chief Executive Dorothy Thompson said on Friday.

As per Thompson carbon prices are quite low under the European Unions emissions trading norms. She further added that for the company to use biomass as fuel economically, carbon prices need to be doubled from current levels. Drax is the single largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the UK.

Carbon price, which has been under pressure for over a year now due to recession, are currently trading at $17 per tonne as per the EU scheme. Moreover, it took another hit in December last year after the Copenhagen summit ended inconclusive.

The biomass fuel in discussion is generally derived from plants and sometimes from animal waste is considered carbon-neutral.

Meanwhile, the company, which was planning to raise £2 billion, was in track with its plans to build a new power plant based on biomass only, Ms Thompson said. She further added that the company had access to at least 7 million tonnes of biomass.