National Grid is mulling over a possible €1 billion (£795 million) bid for the high-voltage transmission business put on sale by E.ON, the German utility.

As National Grid reported a 24 per cent rise in annual pretax profits to £1.8 billion, Steve Holliday, the chief executive, said that the company would “certainly have a look”, although he emphasised that any acquisition would “have to create value for us”.

E.ON said in February that it aimed to sell its high-voltage, long-distance power grid in Germany to settle a European Commission antitrust case.

The company’s board on Tuesday night approved the sale of the network, which extends for 10,000 km. E.ON is also selling some power generation assets.

Separately, Mr Holliday said that National Grid was drawing up plans for a revolutionary network of subsea cables the length of Britain.

The cables, which would cost about £5 billion each, would allow large amounts of electricity to be transmitted from wind and other renewable energy schemes around the UK’s periphery to consumers in central and southern England. Mr Holliday said the scheme was “clearly something that we would be interested in building”. “Fundamentally, it is the right thing for the UK . . . socially it is so much more acceptable.”

The cables, which would run on either side of the country from proposed wind and tidal energy schemes in Northern Scotland, probably to the Thames and Severn estuaries, would avoid inevitable opposition to the alternative – conventional overhead lines. Mr Holliday said it might also be possible to connect new nuclear plants.

The Crown Estate, which owns the seabed, says a basic subsea cable running along the East Coast would cost about £4.8 billion by 2020. David Hirst of the Institute of Civil Engineers said it may be a conservative figure.

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