Live data · Great Britain
See how Britain is generating electricity
Demand, generation by fuel, imports and carbon intensity reconciled into one transparent half-hour view.
Contains BMRS data © Elexon Limited copyright and database right 2026. Carbon intensity from the National Energy System Operator and the University of Oxford, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Demand and interconnector data from NESO under the NESO Open Data Licence.
Great Britain
Latest half-hour
Half-hour ending · 7 minutes old
Last complete half-hour
Ending · 37 minutes old
- Demand
- 27,960 MW
- Carbon
- 166 gCO₂/kWh
- Market
- £198.6/MWh
- System price
- £158.9/MWh
27,192 MW
National demand · actual
26,912 MW
Metered plus estimated embedded
46.9%
Share of GB generation, not imports
Not available
Actual national intensity
5,365 MW
Positive means electricity entering GB
£201.4/MWh
Provisional MID indicator, not a supplier purchase price
What stands out right now
2 things are unusual about this half-hour
Wholesale electricity is expensive right now, at £201 per MWh.
Prices at this level mean the system is having to call on its costlier plant. This is a short-term market indicator rather than what any supplier paid, and it reaches a capped or fixed tariff slowly, if at all.
Imports are covering about 16.6% of Great Britain's electricity.
Great Britain is drawing 5.4 GW from its neighbours through the interconnectors, which happens when power abroad is cheaper than running another plant here.
These notes are generated from the figures on this page by fixed rules, with a stated threshold behind each one. They are not written or checked by an editor before publication, and nothing appears here unless the underlying measurement was actually reported. Not currently available: carbon intensity — so nothing is said about it.
Latest interval
Generation by source
Generation only · imports excluded
- Gas (CCGT)8,746 MW32.5%
- Metered wind4,330 MW16.1%
- Nuclear3,500 MW13.0%
- Embedded solar (estimated)3,347 MW12.4%
- Biomass3,020 MW11.2%
- Other1,986 MW7.4%
- Embedded wind (estimated)1,143 MW4.2%
- Hydro791 MW2.9%
- Gas (OCGT)55 MW0.2%
- Oil0 MW0.0%
- Coal0 MW0.0%
Biomass is counted as renewable under the current calculation policy. Pumped storage is shown as output, not primary generation.
Cross-border power
Interconnector flows
Positive values are imports into Great Britain. Negative values are exports from Great Britain.
- BritNed · Netherlands997 MWImporting
- East–West481 MWExporting
- ElecLink · France999 MWImporting
- Greenlink514 MWExporting
- IFA · France1,001 MWImporting
- IFA2 · France992 MWImporting
- Moyle452 MWExporting
- Nemo Link · Belgium0 MWImporting
- North Sea Link · Norway1,400 MWImporting
- Viking Link · Denmark1,423 MWImporting
Declared position · not metered
Battery storage
21 Sept 2026, 09:00 BST · 109 of 116 units
The fleet is currently discharging. Batteries charge when power is cheap and plentiful, and discharge into the evening peak.
- Discharging
- 941 MW
- Charging
- 2 MW
- Net
- 939 MW
- Registered capacity
- 6,294 MW
Across the last 48 half hours the fleet peaked at 1,833 MW charging and 2,496 MW discharging.
Elexon publishes no battery fuel type, so these figures are built from physical notifications — the position each operator declared for the half hour — aggregated over 116 balancing-mechanism units identified as batteries. They are a declared intention rather than a meter reading, and are deliberately excluded from the generation mix above. This covers batteries registered in the balancing mechanism, not every grid-scale battery in Great Britain: capacity that is not registered, or that trades through an aggregator unit, sits outside the figures on this panel.
Half-hour history
21 September 2026
18 of 48 intervals
Demand and generation
Same MW scale; generation includes estimated embedded wind and solar.
Carbon intensity
Actual and forecast remain separate on one gCO₂/kWh scale.
Short-term and system prices
Provisional £/MWh indicators. MID is not the price every supplier paid.
View exact half-hour figures
| Interval | Demand | Generation | Carbon actual | Carbon forecast | Market index | System buy | System sell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21,999 MW | 19,560 MW | 141 gCO₂/kWh | 125 gCO₂/kWh | £157.3/MWh | £125.1/MWh | £125.1/MWh | |
| 21,685 MW | 19,116 MW | 139 gCO₂/kWh | 125 gCO₂/kWh | £146.0/MWh | £125.1/MWh | £125.1/MWh | |
| 21,367 MW | 18,464 MW | 136 gCO₂/kWh | 138 gCO₂/kWh | £138.2/MWh | £125.1/MWh | £125.1/MWh | |
| 21,220 MW | 17,970 MW | 138 gCO₂/kWh | 136 gCO₂/kWh | £143.7/MWh | £125.1/MWh | £125.1/MWh | |
| 21,139 MW | 17,519 MW | 142 gCO₂/kWh | 136 gCO₂/kWh | £137.9/MWh | £122.3/MWh | £122.3/MWh | |
| 20,491 MW | 17,030 MW | 139 gCO₂/kWh | 135 gCO₂/kWh | £136.6/MWh | £125.1/MWh | £125.1/MWh | |
| 19,457 MW | 16,506 MW | 137 gCO₂/kWh | 147 gCO₂/kWh | £148.6/MWh | £238.0/MWh | £238.0/MWh | |
| 19,772 MW | 16,192 MW | 138 gCO₂/kWh | 144 gCO₂/kWh | £141.3/MWh | £141.3/MWh | £141.3/MWh | |
| 20,051 MW | 17,087 MW | 142 gCO₂/kWh | 141 gCO₂/kWh | £138.1/MWh | £114.4/MWh | £114.4/MWh | |
| 19,946 MW | 17,438 MW | 158 gCO₂/kWh | 135 gCO₂/kWh | £135.0/MWh | £130.0/MWh | £130.0/MWh | |
| 19,814 MW | 19,115 MW | 163 gCO₂/kWh | 154 gCO₂/kWh | £151.5/MWh | £238.0/MWh | £238.0/MWh | |
| 20,929 MW | 20,034 MW | 169 gCO₂/kWh | 162 gCO₂/kWh | £157.0/MWh | £125.3/MWh | £125.3/MWh | |
| 22,892 MW | 21,014 MW | 181 gCO₂/kWh | 130 gCO₂/kWh | £167.6/MWh | £238.0/MWh | £238.0/MWh | |
| 24,127 MW | 22,430 MW | 181 gCO₂/kWh | 176 gCO₂/kWh | £182.0/MWh | £238.0/MWh | £238.0/MWh | |
| 26,215 MW | 23,820 MW | 180 gCO₂/kWh | 178 gCO₂/kWh | £194.7/MWh | £238.0/MWh | £238.0/MWh | |
| 27,151 MW | 25,600 MW | 173 gCO₂/kWh | 186 gCO₂/kWh | £203.8/MWh | £238.0/MWh | £238.0/MWh | |
| 27,960 MW | 26,442 MW | 166 gCO₂/kWh | 176 gCO₂/kWh | £198.6/MWh | £158.9/MWh | £158.9/MWh | |
| 27,192 MW | 26,912 MW | Not available | 168 gCO₂/kWh | £201.4/MWh | Not available | Not available |
394 days
Carbon intensity, day by day
Each bar spans the cleanest and dirtiest half hour of its day; the line is the daily mean. A day that averages 120 but ranges from 40 to 300 is a different day from one that held steady, and an average alone would not show it.
gCO₂/kWh. Only days that reconciled in full are drawn — 6 of 400 in this window are partly collected and are left out rather than plotted as a dip that did not happen.
Averages over time
How this compares with the recent record
Each figure is a mean over the complete half hours in its window. Intervals where a fuel or a flow was not published are excluded rather than counted as zero, so every period states how much of itself it is based on. The reconciled record here begins on 1 January 2019 — earlier than that is not missing data, it is simply outside what has been collected, and the records further down draw on a longer published series instead.
Past day
47 of 48 half hours · 97.9% of the window · from 20 September 2026 · calculated
- Price
- £107.3/MWh
- Emissions
- 114 g/kWh
- Demand
- 21,256 MW
- Generation
- 24,168 MW
- Net imports
- 3,001 MW
Battery 497 MW discharging against 513 MW charging, over 48 half hours. Declared position, not metered, and not part of the mix below.
- Metered wind7,667 MW38.7%
- Gas (CCGT)5,447 MW27.5%
- Nuclear3,353 MW16.9%
- Biomass2,052 MW10.4%
- Other787 MW4.0%
- Hydro461 MW2.3%
- Gas (OCGT)51 MW0.3%
- Oil0 MW0.0%
- Coal0 MW0.0%
- Pumped storage-188 MW0.0%
Past week
335 of 336 half hours · 99.7% of the window · from 14 September 2026 · calculated
- Price
- £104.1/MWh
- Emissions
- 85 g/kWh
- Demand
- 22,612 MW
- Generation
- 28,508 MW
- Net imports
- 323 MW
Battery 455 MW discharging against 456 MW charging, over 334 half hours. Declared position, not metered, and not part of the mix below.
- Metered wind11,843 MW50.2%
- Gas (CCGT)5,096 MW21.6%
- Nuclear3,330 MW14.1%
- Biomass2,130 MW9.0%
- Other746 MW3.2%
- Hydro413 MW1.8%
- Gas (OCGT)15 MW0.1%
- Oil0 MW0.0%
- Coal0 MW0.0%
- Pumped storage-114 MW0.0%
Past year
17,519 of 17,520 half hours · 100.0% of the window · from 21 September 2025 · calculated
- Price
- £93.8/MWh
- Emissions
- 124 g/kWh
- Demand
- 26,120 MW
- Generation
- 28,446 MW
- Net imports
- 3,080 MW
Battery 398 MW discharging against 274 MW charging, over 2,323 half hours. Declared position, not metered, and not part of the mix below.
- Metered wind8,674 MW35.9%
- Gas (CCGT)8,326 MW34.5%
- Nuclear3,714 MW15.4%
- Biomass2,309 MW9.6%
- Other692 MW2.9%
- Hydro422 MW1.7%
- Gas (OCGT)26 MW0.1%
- Oil0 MW0.0%
- Coal0 MW0.0%
- Pumped storage-58 MW0.0%
Whole stored recordsince 1 January 2019
133,864 of 135,376 half hours · 98.9% of the window · from 1 January 2019 · calculated
- Price
- £91.9/MWh
- Emissions
- 163 g/kWh
- Demand
- 26,912 MW
- Generation
- 28,684 MW
- Net imports
- 2,458 MW
Battery 398 MW discharging against 274 MW charging, over 2,323 half hours. Declared position, not metered, and not part of the mix below.
- Gas (CCGT)10,537 MW41.8%
- Metered wind6,816 MW27.0%
- Nuclear4,760 MW18.9%
- Biomass2,000 MW7.9%
- Hydro399 MW1.6%
- Coal349 MW1.4%
- Other326 MW1.3%
- Gas (OCGT)21 MW0.1%
- Oil0 MW0.0%
- Pumped storage-61 MW0.0%
Since January 2009
Records
- Most wind
- 23.88 GW
- 25 March 2026
- Most solar
- 16.29 GW
- 23 April 2026
- Cleanest half hour
- 19 g/kWh
- 15 April 2024
When British wind first reached
| Output | First reached | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| 23.00 GW | 5 December 2025 | 23,070 MW |
| 22.00 GW | 15 December 2024 | 22,061 MW |
| 21.00 GW | 10 January 2023 | 21,001 MW |
| 20.00 GW | 2 November 2022 | 20,304 MW |
| 18.00 GW | 28 March 2021 | 18,008 MW |
| 15.00 GW | 18 December 2018 | 15,000 MW |
| 10.00 GW | 23 December 2016 | 10,040 MW |
| 5.00 GW | 7 November 2012 | 5,031 MW |
Levels not yet reached are absent rather than listed as pending, so this table never advertises a record that has not happened.
NESO Historic GB Generation Mix, 310,663 half hours from 1 January 2009. Half-hourly from January 2009. Wind is metered plus embedded generation; a metered-only series peaks at 18.4 GW and would not carry these figures. This is NESO’s published series rather than the half-hourly reconciliation used elsewhere on this page, because only it reaches back far enough for a record to mean anything. Last calculated .
United Kingdom · not Great Britain
The end of coal
Coal generated 137.8 TWh of the United Kingdom’s electricity in 2006 and 0 TWh in 2025. The last coal-fired power station in Great Britain closed on 30 September 2024, which is why coal reads zero in every figure above.
- 1997110.1 TWh
- 1998112.9 TWh
- 199997.4 TWh
- 2000111.8 TWh
- 2001121.3 TWh
- 2002115.4 TWh
- 2003127.7 TWh
- 2004121.9 TWh
- 2005124.8 TWh
- 2006137.8 TWh
- 2007125.4 TWh
- 2008114.2 TWh
- 200994.3 TWh
- 201098.6 TWh
- 201199.4 TWh
- 2012132.7 TWh
- 2013123.5 TWh
- 201495 TWh
- 201571.9 TWh
- 201629.1 TWh
- 201721.3 TWh
- 201815.9 TWh
- 20196.5 TWh
- 20205.2 TWh
- 20216 TWh
- 20225.1 TWh
- 20233.1 TWh
- 20241.6 TWh
- 20250 TWh
DESNZ Energy Trends 5.4. United Kingdom including Northern Ireland, so not directly comparable with the Great Britain figures above. Only complete calendar years are shown, so a year still being published does not appear as a fall that has not happened.
United Kingdom history, separate from the live Great Britain view
Fifty years of fuel used to generate electricity
These published histories cover the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland. They are kept below and off the axes of the live Great Britain data above.
The annual lines are DUKES figures in Mtoe. They describe fuel used for generation, not electricity delivered. Energy Trends owns monthly and quarterly observations; DUKES owns annual observations. The grains are never spliced into one line.
Supply and consumption in the latest complete DUKES year
These annual TWh series have their own unit and definition; they are not added to the fuel-input chart.
- Domestic consumption
- 96.2 TWh
- 2025 · United Kingdom
- Electricity supplied net
- 278.8 TWh
- 2025 · United Kingdom
- Industrial consumption
- 76.7 TWh
- 2025 · United Kingdom
- Total electricity consumed
- 280.2 TWh
- 2025 · United Kingdom
Fuel used in the latest Energy Trends month
Monthly fuel inputs are individual Energy Trends columns in Mtoe. They remain separate from the quarterly category table and the annual DUKES lines.
- Bioenergy
- 0.4 Mtoe
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
- Coal
- 0 Mtoe
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
- Gas
- 1.1 Mtoe
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
- Hydro
- 0 Mtoe
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
- Nuclear
- 0.5 Mtoe
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
- Oil
- 0 Mtoe
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
- Solar
- 0.1 Mtoe
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
- Wind
- 0.5 Mtoe
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
Supply and sales in the latest Energy Trends month
These monthly TWh columns retain their published geography. England and Wales and Scotland sales are not relabelled as United Kingdom.
- Domestic sales
- 6.6 TWh
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
- Industrial sales
- 5.6 TWh
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
- Sales in england and wales
- 18.2 TWh
- 2026-06 · England and Wales
- Sales in scotland
- 1.5 TWh
- 2026-06 · Scotland
- Total electricity available
- 23.9 TWh
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
- Total electricity consumption
- 22.2 TWh
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
- Total sales to consumers
- 20.2 TWh
- 2026-06 · United Kingdom
Generation by fuel in the latest Energy Trends quarter
All-generating-company TWh figures. The quarterly category layout is kept separate from the monthly column series. Monthly tables publish one metric per column while quarterly tables publish many categories beneath one metric. They are returned separately and not flattened.
- Bioenergy
- 10.1 TWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Coal
- 0 TWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Gas
- 26.6 TWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Nuclear
- 8.8 TWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Solar
- 2.7 TWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Total wind
- 29.3 TWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
Supply and consumption in the latest Energy Trends quarter
Quarterly supply, demand, consumption, losses, imports and exports are published as categories beneath one GWh metric. They are not merged with the monthly TWh columns.
- Domestic excluding electric vehicles
- 27,421 GWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Exports
- 4,219 GWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Imports
- 10,402 GWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Losses
- 8,449 GWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Other industries
- 18,904 GWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Total demand
- 88,704 GWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Total supply
- 88,469 GWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
Renewable capacity and generation
Capacity and generation have different technology rows and are never joined or summed by category. Shares use the unit stored with each row.
- Total
- 66,030 MW
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
- Total
- 43,659.7 GWh
- 2026-Q1 · United Kingdom
All renewables supplied 53.1% of United Kingdom generation in 2026-Q1.
Scope, editions and sources
Every array is drawn from one newest unambiguous release per source. Mixed publication-date coverage or a tied newest release makes that source unavailable. DUKES publishes two differently scoped rows for 1987. This read keeps its all generating companies row and excludes the narrower major-power-producer row. The existing Energy Trends 5.4 coal history remains owned by its separate transition reader and is not duplicated here.
- Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 · Digest of UK Energy Statistics chapter 5: electricity · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 · Energy Trends section 5: electricity · Open Government Licence v3.0
- Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 · Energy Trends 6.1: renewable electricity capacity and generation, quarterly · Open Government Licence v3.0
Margin notices
When the system has been tight
A call from the system operator for more generation to be offered into the market for a particular set of half hours. It is a margin signal, not a blackout warning and not a power cut: the great majority are answered by the market and cancelled.
- Distinct margin periods since 23 Aug 2025, 13:40
- 5
- Of those, stood down
- 4
- Other operating notices
- 473
NESO published 11 issue or update rows for these 5 periods. Updates to the same stated period are not counted as new notices.
Most transmission system warnings are routine operating notices - interconnector trade notifications and IT system outages - and say nothing about whether the system is tight. They are counted here only so the margin figure has a denominator.
The most recent was issued 12 Aug 2026, 07:21, and the most recent stand-down was 12 Aug 2026, 12:57.
- 12 Aug 2026, 12:57stood down
- 12 Aug 2026, 07:21notice issued
- 11 Aug 2026, 22:34notice issued
- 11 Aug 2026, 22:30notice issued
- 9 Jul 2026, 19:30stood down
- 9 Jul 2026, 13:49notice issued
- 9 Jul 2026, 09:28notice issued
- 8 Jul 2026, 21:31notice issued
- 26 Jun 2026, 21:41stood down
- 26 Jun 2026, 14:45notice issued
- 26 Jun 2026, 09:40notice issued
- 26 Jun 2026, 00:30notice issued
- 24 Jun 2026, 14:20stood down
- 24 Jun 2026, 08:10notice issued
- 23 Jun 2026, 22:04notice issued
Source: Elexon Limited — System warnings (SYSWARN) · BMRS open data licence · checked 21 Sept 2026, 08:11
Trace every figure
Sources and licences
Energy Review reconciles these official datasets but does not alter missing values or blend actuals with forecasts. A source marked “used” contributed to the interval above.
- Used
Elexon Limited
Initial National and Transmission System Demand Outturn
Contains BMRS data © Elexon Limited copyright and database right 2026.
Last checked
- Used
Elexon Limited
Generation outturn summary by fuel type
Contains BMRS data © Elexon Limited copyright and database right 2026.
Last checked
- Used
Elexon Limited
Market Index Data (MID)
Contains BMRS data © Elexon Limited copyright and database right 2026.
Last checked
- Used
Elexon Limited
Indicative System Buy and Sell Prices (DISEBSP)
Contains BMRS data © Elexon Limited copyright and database right 2026.
Last checked
- Used
National Energy System Operator
Carbon Intensity API — national intensity
Contains Carbon Intensity API data from National Energy System Operator, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Last checked
- Used
National Energy System Operator
Demand Data Update
Supported by National Energy SO Open Data
Last checked
How to read these figures
MW is power. It describes the rate of demand or generation during an interval.
MWh is energy. One half-hour at a steady 1 MW is 0.5 MWh.
Imports are not a fuel. They balance supply and demand but are excluded from generation shares because their source mix is not known here.
Read the full Energy Review methodology.