{"id":2698,"date":"2026-05-21T08:10:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T08:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/?p=2698"},"modified":"2026-06-22T09:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T09:15:09","slug":"capacity-and-production-statistics-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/?p=2698","title":{"rendered":"Capacity and production statistics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The first day back to work after the New Year saw Britain\u2019s highest electricity demand in nearly a decade. Widespread snowstorms closed hundreds of schools<\/a>, as the UK recorded its coldest night of the year with temperatures plunging to\u00a0-12\u00b0C. With heating systems working flat out to keep homes warm, national\u00a0electricity demand peaked above 50 GW for the first time since 2018. Overall\u00a0demand across the quarter was 0.7% higher than a year ago, continuing its\u00a0recent upward trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The extra demand was met largely by renewables rather than fossil fuels. A stormy\u00a0three months gave wind farms their most productive quarter ever, generating\u00a030% more electricity than during the same period last year. For the fourth\u00a0consecutive quarter, wind power was Britain\u2019s largest source of electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This pushed fossil-fuelled generation down by 16% year-on-year, while electricity\u00a0exports almost doubled. Only six days during the quarter saw fossil fuels produce\u00a0more electricity than low-carbon sources. This helped the carbon intensity of\u00a0electricity fall to an average of 127 g\/kWh over the three months to March, its\u00a0lowest ever level for a first quarter of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain\u2019s electricity supply mix in the\u00a0first quarter of 2026.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Installed capacity and electricity produced by each technology.(1) (2)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

(1) Other sources give different values because of the types of plant they consider. For example, Energy Trends<\/a> records an additional 0.7 GW of hydro, 0.6 GW of biomass and 3 GW of waste-to-energy plants. These plants and their output are not visible to the electricity transmission system and so cannot be reported on here.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) We include an estimate of the installed capacity of smaller storage devices which are not monitored by the electricity market operator.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first day back to work after the New Year saw Britain\u2019s highest electricity demand in nearly a decade. Widespread snowstorms closed hundreds of schools, as the UK recorded its coldest night of the year with temperatures plunging to\u00a0-12\u00b0C. With heating systems working flat out to keep homes warm, national\u00a0electricity demand peaked above 50 GW for the first time since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[41,70],"class_list":["post-2698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-q1-2026","tag-electric-insights","tag-q1-2026"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t