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Sir Richard Branson is one of 102 top business signatories of an open letter to David Cameron urging him to back wind and other renewable forms of power generation.

“March’s budget provides one of the biggest opportunities to tackle climate change in the UK,” the Virgin tycoon says. “We must ensure it encourages investment rather than creates uncertainty and delays further serious investment in the renewable sector. As a country we need to be better prepared to deal with rising energy prices.”

The so-called ‘102 letter’ is conceived partly as a response to the actions of 101 backbenchers who last month wrote to the Prime Minister attacking wind power, and a call to the Treasury to re-establish a stable investment platform for renewable energy as a driver of the recovery out of the recession.

It is published on the website of the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation (EO), the global network of more than 7,500 business owners in 38 countries.

“Cutting support for green energy is a false economy,” comments Dale Vince, Founder and CEO of Ecotricity, one of Britain’s most successful new energy companies trying to muscle in on the territory controlled by the Big Six.

His angle is energy security. “Britain needs to become energy independent once more, and with the North Sea all but depleted of fossil fuels we need to look to other forms of indigenous energy. We have them in abundance, in the wind the sun and the sea, enough to power our country many times over.

“While Britain remains dependent on global energy markets, our bills can only go one way: upwards.”

His analysis is that the level of current support for green energy sources is relatively small in comparison to that for oil and gas.

In the last 12 months roughly £30 of our household energy bills has been spent on green energy support. Of this, the Renewables Obligation (RO) added just £15.15 to the annual energy bill of the United Kingdom’s 26.3 million households, with onshore wind power adding only £4.68, according to Ofgem’s recently published RO annual report for 2010/11and Ecotricity’s analysis.

The RO is the main support mechanism for encouraging the growth of renewable energy in the UK.

Meanwhile, the rising cost of imported gas added around £120 to energy bills last year, according to Ofgem’s Electricity and Gas Supply Market Report.

“We need to reverse those proportions; it’s an incredible false economy to throw money at energy market speculators while penny pinching over the one thing we can do to solve the problem long term: make our own energy,” concludes Mr Vince.

The letter says that “as entrepreneurs, investors, economists, scientists, engineers, energy providers, community builders and Members of Parliaments, we are increasingly concerned about the lack of clarity around the future of government support for land-based renewables, such as solar, wind and biogas.”