Tag: Electric Insights

Wind power was Britain’s largest source of generation for the second quarter running – the first time it has taken top spot for two consecutive quarters. Over the six winter months (Oct–Mar), wind supplied 20% more electricity than natural gas.

Biomass and hydro output were both up strongly from a year ago, but nuclear output fell to its lowest share of electricity production since 1965. During the first three months it produced just 10.4% of Britain’s electricity, with January seeing 6 of the country’s 9 reactors offline for maintenance. Hinkley Point C was originally expected to come online last year, more than sufficient to fill the looming gap, but it is now not expected to start operations for another five years.

Share of Britain’s electricity demand met by nuclear power.

Britain’s electricity supply mix in the first quarter of 2024.

Installed capacity and electricity produced by each technology [2] [3].

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[2] Other sources give different values because of the types of plant they consider. For example, BEIS Energy Trends 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.

[3] We include an estimate of the installed capacity of smaller storage devices which are not monitored by the electricity market operator.

Britain’s wind farms produced more than seven-tenths of electricity demand for the first time on 26 January. Output was boosted by strong winds in the North Sea enabling the world’s largest offshore wind farm (Hornsea Two) operating at almost 100% capacity factor. The quarter also saw the highest ever share of electricity produced from clean sources, at over 95% on 23 March. That same day also had the lowest ever carbon intensity, 33 g/kWh averaged over 24 hours. Just as nuclear output hit a new low averaged over the quarter, it also fell to record lows for instantaneous and daily-average share on 18 January, and monthly average output across January.

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 first quarter of 2024, or annual records broken in 2023. 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.