Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- RWE AG’s U.K. unit reached agreement with National Grid Plc to connect as many as three nuclear plants to the country’s power network as it plans 10 billion pounds ($14.6 billion) of investment in new British generation capacity.

RWE Npower, part of Germany’s second-biggest utility, has agreements for a total of 3.6 gigawatts of production, enough for more than 5 million homes, the Swindon, England-based company said in an e-mailed statement. The capacity, for a site near the Wylfa atomic plant in Wales, was awarded in three blocks of 1.2 gigawatts, one each year from 2020, spokeswoman Claire Loveday said today by phone.

Europe’s biggest utilities plan to build nuclear stations in Britain to replace older plants without adding to carbon dioxide emissions. Electricite de France SA, the world’s largest operator of atomic plants, received approval to buy British Energy Group Plc for 12.5 billion pounds on Dec. 22, giving it access to sites for new reactors. E.ON AG, Germany’s biggest utility, has bought land adjacent to the Oldbury nuclear plant in southwest England.

RWE has options to buy farmland on the Isle of Anglesey, near to the existing state-owned Wylfa plant, which may close as early as 2010, the company said in the statement.

EDF also owns land next to Wylfa, and has approval to connect a new station to the transmission network there from October 2017. The French utility is selling those assets under a U.K. government agreement enabling it to buy British Energy.

Reactor Designs

The U.K. nuclear-safety regulator is studying a reactor design from Toshiba Corp.’s Westinghouse Electric Co. and a joint submission by France’s Areva SA and EDF, for provisional approval to build the plants in the U.K. The French model, an Evolutionary Power Reactor, produces as much as 1,650 megawatts of electricity. Westinghouse’s AP1000 has a capacity of about 1,150 megawatts.

“We are in discussions with a number of utilities” about the construction of reactors in Britain, Adrian Bull, Westinghouse’s U.K. relationship manager for new plant business, said in an e-mail yesterday. “We are further advanced with one potential partner and have made proposals regarding the provision of AP1000 reactors in the U.K.,” he said, without elaborating.

RWE is also building gas-fired plants and wind turbines in the U.K. as it invests 1 billion pounds a year for the next 10 years.

“Without major investment in U.K. energy infrastructure over the coming years, the U.K. faces shortages in the approach to 2015,” Andy Duff, Npower’s chief executive officer, said in the statement.

National Grid manages Britain’s power-transmission network.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Dobson in London at pdobson2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 30, 2008 08:38 EST