{"id":2682,"date":"2026-05-21T08:11:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T08:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/?p=2682"},"modified":"2026-05-21T08:11:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T08:11:04","slug":"introduction-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/?p=2682","title":{"rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The world is in the grip of the second fossil-fuel crisis so\u00a0far this decade. The US-Israeli war in Iran has closed the\u00a0Strait of Hormuz, which had carried some 20% of global oil\u00a0and seaborne gas. Natural gas prices doubled in Britain,\u00a0and the Government is now changing how it supports older\u00a0renewable generators to try and\u00a0 weaken the link between gas and electricity prices<\/a>. Our second article looks at the\u00a0longer-term solution: cutting Britain\u2019s exposure to\u00a0geopolitical energy shocks by reducing our reliance on\u00a0fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the power system faces growing\u00a0pressure from rising demand. The Government has high\u00a0ambitions for AI, wanting at least 6 GW of AI-capable data\u00a0centres by 2030. These could jeopardise national carbon\u00a0targets and further strain the grid unless managed\u00a0properly.\u00a0Our third article\u00a0explores the choices over where\u00a0large data centres are built and how they operate, which\u00a0could turn them into assets that help smooth out demand\u00a0and the costs of decarbonisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain\u2019s renewables have been smashing records through\u00a0March and April. The grid got tantalisingly close to operating without fossil fuels<\/a> in the first week of April<\/a>, as generation from gas fell below 1 GW. Alongside power companies giving away free electricity on weekends, the Government is trialling free or discounted electricity for people in congested areas<\/a>, to help avoid wind power\u00a0being wasted. This shows that flexibility is more important\u00a0than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Energy storage and interconnection are two of the main\u00a0ways to manage more renewables on the system. Finally,\u00a0the political headwinds are shifting towards closer\u00a0integration with Europe, which might allow those links to\u00a0be used more effectively in future. Despite being an island\u00a0nation,\u00a0our fifth article\u00a0shows how Britain has overtaken\u00a0Germany to become the most interconnected large power\u00a0system in Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Government has set three Clean Power 2030 targets,\u00a0covering the amount of clean electricity produced and\u00a0overall carbon intensity. The grid continued to decarbonise\u00a0in early 2026: the rolling annual share of clean generation\u00a0rose by 1.7 percentage points, while carbon intensity fell\u00a0by 6 g\/kWh.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world is in the grip of the second fossil-fuel crisis so\u00a0far this decade. The US-Israeli war in Iran has closed the\u00a0Strait of Hormuz, which had carried some 20% of global oil\u00a0and seaborne gas. Natural gas prices doubled in Britain,\u00a0and the Government is now changing how it supports older\u00a0renewable generators to try and\u00a0 weaken the link between gas and electricity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[41,70],"class_list":["post-2682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-q1-2026","tag-electric-insights","tag-q1-2026"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2682"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2714,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682\/revisions\/2714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}