BRITISH GAS parent company Centrica hopes to become a key player in Britain’s next generation of nuclear power after securing a stake in Hartlepool Power Station owner British Energy.

Centrica has negotiated a £2.3bn deal with France’s EDF for a 20 per cent stake in British Energy.

EDF completed a £12.5bn takeover of British Energy in January.

The two parties agreed the side deal in principle last summer, but talks have dragged on because energy prices have been plunging.

Yesterday’s agreement is less than the 25 per cent stake envisaged last year.

Centrica said the British Energy agreement made it a key player in the development of new nuclear power in the UK.

In January last year, the Government gave its formal backing to a new generation of nuclear power stations, with construction on the first expected to start in 2011.

Under yesterday’s deal, Centrica will embark on a joint venture with EDF to undertake preparations for the planned nuclear build programme.

The two companies expect the venture to construct, operate and decommission four new longerlasting EPR reactors, which are a type of pressurised water reactor, similar to those already in operation in nuclear industry-reliant France.

Centrica owns enough power plants to meet about 35 per cent of demand from its 16 million UK customers, but with the British Energy stake, this could rise to more than 45 per cent.

Last year, EDF announced its intention to build two nuclear reactors on land adjacent to existing nuclear power stations in Sizewell and Hinkley Point, with the first site due to be operational by the end of 2017.

British Energy plants supply the UK with about one-sixth of its electricity needs in total. As well as Hartlepool, it has sites in Heysham, Lancashire; Dungeness, Kent; Hinkley Point, Somerset; Hunterston, in Ayrshire; Sizewell, in Suffolk; and East Lothian.