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British Energy was the UK's largest electricity generation company by volume, before being taken over by Électricité de France (EDF) in 2009. British Energy Group plc: holding company, a wholly owned subsidiary of EDF S. A.
British Energy Generation Ltd: dominant subsidiary; owned and ran the large power stations, was licensed to operate nuclear power stations. District Energy Ltd: owned four modern 10MWe natural gas fuelled power plants. British Energy Renewables Ltd: participated in a small number of renewable power projects. Lewis Wind Power Ltd: joint venture with AMEC to develop a proposed wind farm on the Isle of Lewis. Unreliable source: reason=domain on WP:BLACKLIST

British Energy was established and registered in Scotland in 1995 to operate the eight most modern nuclear power plants in the UK. It took the two Advanced Gas cooled Reactor (AGR) plants from Scottish Nuclear and five AGR and a sole pressurised water reactor (PWR) plant from Nuclear Electric. It retained major technical offices at Barnwood, formerly the HQ of Nuclear Electric, and Peel Park, formerly the HQ of Scottish Nuclear. In June 1999, in an attempt to become an integrated generating and retail company, British Energy bought the retail electricity and gas supplier SWALEC based in Wales, providing 6% of the England and Wales electricity supply market. However it was unable to purchase another retailer at a reasonable cost to create a widespread retail presence, so sold SWALEC a few months later to Scottish and Southern Energy. British Energy bought the 2,000MWe Eggborough coal fired station from National Power in 2000, to provide a more flexible power production facility and reduce penalty charge risks from the New Electricity Trading Arrangements introduced in March 2001. Despite this, the new arrangements led to a significantly lower electricity price for inflexible base load power stations such as British Energy had. The purchase of Eggborough occurred at the peak of the market for power stations, and in 2002, the value of the station was written down by half. In 2001, the company was the major partner in taking on an operating lease to become the operator of Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario, Canada. The resultant subsidiary was called Bruce Power. As part of financial re structuring, Bruce Power was sold to a consortium of Canadian investors in February 2003. In 2007, British Energy entered into a seven year partnership agreement with Doosan Babcock Energy to provide technical, engineering and operational support across all British Energy sites. The agreement was at the time held to be potentially worth around £550million, bringing up to 800 jobs into Scotland and the rest of the UK.

The company faced financial trouble from 2002, when it first approached the British government for financial aid. This followed a slump in wholesale energy prices, a failure to obtain relaxations on the Climate Change Levy, and renegotiations of its back end fuel costs with BNFL, These fuel liabilities extended until 2086. Despite its financial problems and government help with its fuel liabilities, British Energy's Chief Executive claimed, on 20 June 2006, that nuclear power stations would be economically viable without government guarantee or subsidy if the operation of the energy market was changed. The British Government's interest in British Energy at this time was managed by the Shareholder Executive on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). The restructuring of British Energy was subject to three National Audit Office reports; in May 1998, February 2004 and March 2006. In 2007, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee reported on the restructuring. They noted that the taxpayer had been left to underwrite large liabilities, revalued at £5.3billion, while creditors who would have received little on liquidation received bonds and shares worth £3.9billion in 2006.

In July 2006, the government announced that they were considering selling part of their interest in British Energy. On 30 May 2007, it was announced that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry would instruct the Nuclear Liabilities Fund to sell up to approximately 450 million shares, representing around 28% of the Fund's interest in British Energy. The Fund's cash sweep percentage would be reduced from around 64% to approximately 36% following the sale. Centrica purchased a 20% share of British Energy from EDF in August 2009. On 1 April 2010, EDF transferred the coal fired Eggborough power station to the plant's bondholders as per an earlier agreement, and in compliance with commitments made to the European Commission when agreeing the acquisition of British Energy.