Britain’s solar panels surpassed 10 GW of output for the first time. On 2 June, output hit 10.7 GW, boosted by June being relatively cool but with higher than average sunshine hours. The combined output of fossil fuels fell to a record low of 0.89 GW on 5 April, the first time they have produced less than 1 GW in a century. Fossil fuels produced less than one-fifth of electricity during April. Putting these together, the carbon intensity of electricity fell to a record low of 103 g/kWh averaged over the second quarter, going under 90 g/kWh in April. The share of all low carbon reached a new peak of 97%, with generation of 39 GW, up from the previous record of 35 GW.
The tables below look over the past fifteen years, back to 2009, 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 2024. Each number links to the date it occurred on the Electric Insights website, so these records can be explored visually.
[4] 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.