Q3 2023: Power system records
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The three months from July to September saw plenty of clean electricity records fall. August saw the share of renewables on the power system break new records, reaching over 77% of supply on August 19th, nearly 5 percentage points higher than the previous record from the start of the year. July saw net demand (gross demand minus wind and solar output) fall to its lowest ever levels, reaching below 8 GW for the first time on July 15th.
July was the lowest-carbon month on record, with the grid averaging 133 g/kWh. September 24th saw a new daily record of just 40 g/kWh. The following day also saw the lowest ever wholesale power price recorded, at –£77.29/MWh.
The tables below look over the past fourteen years (2009 to 2023) and report the record output and share of electricity generation, plus sustained averages over a day, a month and a calendar year. Cells highlighted in blue are records that were broken in the third quarter of 2023. Each number links to the date it occurred on the Electric Insights website, so these records can be explored visually.
3 Note that Britain has no inter-seasonal electricity storage, so we only report on half-hourly and daily records. Elexon and National Grid only report the output of large pumped hydro storage plants.
The operation of battery, flywheel and other storage sites is not publicly available.