The government got a good price when it sold British Energy, according to a report from auditors, but it is not clear that the sale will guarantee the building of new nuclear power stations.

British Energy, the largest independent energy generator in the UK, was sold to EDF Energy for £4.4bn in January last year when energy prices were at a peak, the National Audit Office (NAO) report published yesterday said.

The government's primary aim in the sale was to hand over a number of British Energy sites to a firm that would be able to use them for new nuclear power stations, without the need for a public subsidy.

The NAO report said the Department of Energy and Climate Change did not seek, and EDF did not offer, any binding commitment to build new nuclear power stations as a condition of the sale. But the deal "has improved the prospect of investment in new nuclear power stations," auditors said.

NAO chief Amyas Morse said it "remains to be seen" whether the new nuclear power stations will be built. "The Department of Energy and Climate Change now needs to make real progress on its contingency plans should EDF be unwilling to build new nuclear power stations," he warned.

The NAO report also notes that the government is still responsible for funding any shortfall in the future cost of decommissioning British Energy’s existing nuclear power stations.

The Shareholder Executive did not carry out a formal assessment of the impact of the sale on the risks that taxpayers might have to bear if, for example, the new owner operated British Energy’s power stations in a way that required earlier decommissioning, auditors added.