Power Station Acquisition

Centrica PLC
                  

             Centrica Acquires Second Texas Power Station

Centrica plc today announced that its North American subsidiary, Centrica US
Holdings Inc, has entered into a binding agreement to acquire 100 per cent of
the partnership interests in Frontera Generation LP (FGLP), a subsidiary of TECO
Energy Inc (TECO), for a consideration of US$134 million (£70 million) in cash.
FGLP owns the Frontera Power Station, a gas-fired combined-cycle 477MW power
plant located in the southern region of Texas, within the area served by
Centrica's CPL Retail Energy subsidiary. Frontera is a 100 per cent merchant
plant and is debt free.

The purchase price is equivalent to US$281 (£147) per kilowatt and is the second
power station Centrica has bought in Texas this year, following the acquisition
of the Bastrop Energy Center in June. As a result, Centrica will be able to meet
approximately 25 per cent of projected peak demand in Texas for 2005 from its
own assets. This is another step towards the target of achieving at least 35 per
cent equity cover for peak demand in Texas.

Frontera was designed to run flexibly and has proved this capability by running
on a daily dual cycle basis since commissioning of the full plant in May 2000.
This type of operation is well aligned with Centrica's retail load in Texas,
where the company currently has over 800,000 residential and commercial
customers.

Sir Roy Gardner, Chief Executive of Centrica, said: 'Today's acquisition is in
line with our risk management strategy of meeting the optimal proportion of our
energy requirements from our own generation. And, as with previous power station
acquisitions, in the UK and North America, our decision to wait for prices to
soften means we have acquired a modern station for less than half the cost of
building a new plant.'

Completion is expected by the end of 2004 and is subject to approval by the
Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice.

Enquiries:

Centrica Media Relations                01753 494085
Centrica Investor Relations             01753 494900


Notes to editors:

1. Centrica and TECO have also agreed that any capacity payments received from
the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas in return for making generation
capacity available to the transmission grid, in excess of US$3 million (£1.6
million) per year, will be shared equally for the first three years following
the acquisition.