| Grid is OK; but you could still avoid CO2 emissions by postponing running big appliances such as dishwashers or washing machines |
|---|
(Over a longer period, the current status is RED.)
You might have saved as much as 37% carbon emissions by choosing the best time to run your washing and other major loads.
Latest data is from Thu Jul 10 06:45:00 UTC 2025. This page should be updated every few minutes: use your browser's refresh/reload button if you need to check again.
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This page shows the current "carbon intensity" of the GB National Grid (ie the England/Scotland/Wales portions of the UK electricity grid) as a simple traffic-light indicator. Carbon intensity is a measure of how much greenhouse gas (especially CO2 or carbon dioxide) is emitted to generate a fixed amount of electricity.
Anything other than a GREEN light suggests that you should consider deferring heavy loads (eg starting a dishwasher or washing-machine at home) because the carbon intensity is relatively high, or because of other factors. Avoiding running major appliances such as washing/heating/cooking during RED times will save CO2 emissions.
You should still conserve first: don't run things that don't need to be run at all, don't leave things on that can be turned off at the wall, run full loads in your washing machine and dishwasher, etc, etc, before worrying about carbon intensity.
Planning ahead: note that in the UK/GB peak demand for electricity will usually be 4pm to 10pm especially on week days in winter (and a lesser peak around 8am to 11am), and peak carbon intensity is often around peak demand, so try to avoid big loads then; if possible run loads such as your dishwasher and washing machine overnight, eg on a delay timer or just as you go to bed, or when you have local microgeneration that can cover much/all of the load.
There are various arguments about whether this marginal cost calculation reflects reality, ie in practice is there simply a gas turbine somewhere that gets spun up a little if you demand extra power. There is much less argument about the value of lowering demand generally, and about lowering peak demand on various parts of the infrastructure.
Shifting loads to the night when energy is going into grid-scale storage such as pumped hydro, avoids pulling it out when you would otherwise run/dispatch the load, and thus saves round-trip losses of ~25% for that load.
You don't need to understand the numbers below, but some people like to see them!
Effective grid carbon intensity for a domestic user is currently 201gCO2/kWh including transmission and distribution losses of 7%.
Latest available grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) is approximately 188gCO2/kWh at Thu Jul 10 06:45:00 UTC 2025 over 27029MW of generation, with a rolling average over 24h of 179gCO2/kWh.
Minimum grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 139gCO2/kWh at Wed Jul 09 12:55:00 UTC 2025.
Maximum grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 218gCO2/kWh at Wed Jul 09 20:00:00 UTC 2025.
Average/mean grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 179gCO2/kWh over the sample data set, with an effective end-user intensity including transmission and distribution losses of 192gCO2/kWh.
| Recent mean GMT hourly generation intensity gCO2/kWh (average=179); *now (=188) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 00 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06* |
| Mean GMT hourly generation GW (all, zero-carbon) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Hours that are basically green, but in which there is draw-down from grid-connected storage with its attendant energy losses and also suggesting that little or no excess non-dispatchable generation is available, ie that are marginally green, are shaded olive.
Current/latest fuel mix at Thu Jul 10 06:45:00 UTC 2025: BIOMASS@3281MW CCGT@10465MW COAL@0MW INTELEC@957MW INTEW@0MW INTFR@1956MW INTGRNL@0MW INTIFA2@987MW INTIRL@0MW INTNED@0MW INTNEM@0MW INTNSL@1395MW INTVKL@0MW NPSHYD@289MW NUCLEAR@4161MW OCGT@0MW OIL@0MW OTHER@1010MW PS@0MW WIND@2528MW.
Generation by fuel category (may overlap):
Overall generation intensity (kgCO2/kWh) computed using the following fuel year-2025 intensities (other fuels/sources are ignored): BIOMASS=0.12 CCGT=0.394 COAL=0.937 INTELEC=0.062 INTEW=0.288 INTFR=0.062 INTGRNL=0.288 INTIFA2=0.062 INTIRL=0.288 INTNED=0.262 INTNEM=0.123 INTNSL=0.012 INTVKL=0.126 NPSHYD=0.0 NUCLEAR=0.0 OCGT=0.651 OIL=0.935 OTHER=0.3 WIND=0.0.
Rolling correlation of fuel use against grid intensity (-ve implies that this fuel reduces grid intensity for non-callable sources): BIOMASS=0.3670 CCGT=0.9924 INTELEC=-0.3148 INTFR=-0.3142 INTIFA2=-0.3839 INTNED=-0.8815 INTNEM=-0.8423 INTVKL=-0.8515 NPSHYD=0.7563 NUCLEAR=-0.4636 OCGT=0.0036 OTHER=0.1918 WIND=0.1459.
Key to fuel codes:
(Histogram input windows: 24h, 168h.)
This estimates the carbon intensity of generation connected to the National Grid GB (Great Britain) high-voltage transmission system, ignoring (pumped) storage and exports but including imports via interconnectors. This excludes 'embedded' generation, eg connected directly to the distribution system, such as small diesels, domestic microgeneration and a significant chunk of wind power, all of which also benefits from reduced transmission/distribution losses, so actual intensity may be somewhat different to (and probably lower than) that reported. However the emissions cost of each marginal/conserved kWh is probably accurately reflected.
(Colours are wrt the last 24h of data.)
This page updated at Thu Jul 10 06:51:07 UTC 2025; generation time 5437ms.
See also:
Poll every 10 minutes for 404 HTTP status code (404 means green, 200 means not green, anything else is 'unknown' status due to server/network/other problems) for automated systems:
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This free service may be unavailable or withdrawn at any time and is provided "as-is" with no warranties of any kind.
Some data used to generate this page is licensed from ELEXON.
Copyright © Damon Hart-Davis 2010--2024. [home]