LONDON , May 5 (UPI) -- Centrica, the owner of British Gas, will hold talks with bidders this week.

There are reportedly five European energy giants ready to bid on British Energy and Centrica has plans to meet with them to discuss the future of the company.

Centrica is allegedly the only chance Britain has to keep at least partial control of the country's new generation nuclear plants local. Centrica will meet with all five potential bidders to discuss a joint venture bid, including France's EDF, a current favorite for the bid.

Sam Laidlaw, Centrica's chief executive, will also meet executives from Germany's RWE and E.ON, Iberdrola of Spain and, potentially, France's Suez, according to sources.

Centrica will discuss a range of options from being part of a bidding consortium to signing energy supply contracts with whoever buys Centrica. Sources say the company is confident it will be able to come to some sort of amiable agreement.

The U.K. operator's talks come as Europe's energy giants line up for the once-bankrupt British Energy. Iberdrola, which owns Scottish Power, may be considering teaming up with German group E.ON, which already owns Britain's largest electricity distributor E.ON UK, formerly Powergen, but a consortium could replace a rival grouping of RWE and Sweden's Vattenfall, which fell apart last week as Vattenfall withdrew on the orders of the Swedish government.

The British government owns a 35 percent stake in the nuclear operator and will decide its next owner.