Q2 2023: Power system records

It was a relatively quiet three months, with only solar PV and imports breaking records over the last quarter. Solar PV crept towards 10 GW peak output on April 20^th, and later in June it produced nearly 3.5 GW averaged over the day, breaking a record which stood since 2018.

Electricity imports also reached new highs, supplying more than one-third of the country’s demand in the early hours of May 7^th, and more than a quarter of the whole day’s electricity on May 20^th.

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 second quarter of 2023. Each number links to the date it occurred on the Electric Insights website, so these records can be explored visually.

1: 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.