| 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 44% carbon emissions by choosing the best time to run your washing and other major loads.
Latest data is from Tue Apr 29 07:15:00 UTC 2025. This page should be updated every few minutes: use your browser's refresh/reload button if you need to check again.
Follow this grid status on Mastodon @EarthOrgUK@mastodon.energy.
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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 9pm especially on week days in winter (and a lesser peak around 9am/10am), 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 240gCO2/kWh including transmission and distribution losses of 7%.
Latest available grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) is approximately 224gCO2/kWh at Tue Apr 29 07:15:00 UTC 2025 over 27639MW of generation, with a rolling average over 24h of 201gCO2/kWh.
Minimum grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 142gCO2/kWh at Mon Apr 28 12:40:00 UTC 2025.
Maximum grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 253gCO2/kWh at Mon Apr 28 17:55:00 UTC 2025.
Average/mean grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 201gCO2/kWh over the sample data set, with an effective end-user intensity including transmission and distribution losses of 215gCO2/kWh.
| Recent mean GMT hourly generation intensity gCO2/kWh (average=201); *now (=224) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 00 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07* |
| 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 Tue Apr 29 07:15:00 UTC 2025: BIOMASS@3103MW CCGT@12342MW COAL@0MW INTELEC@998MW INTEW@0MW INTFR@1506MW INTGRNL@0MW INTIFA2@0MW INTIRL@0MW INTNED@1029MW INTNEM@999MW INTNSL@1397MW INTVKL@987MW NPSHYD@268MW NUCLEAR@3176MW OCGT@40MW OIL@0MW OTHER@619MW PS@216MW WIND@959MW.
Current draw-down from storage is 216MW.
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=0.6967 CCGT=0.9677 INTELEC=0.5485 INTFR=0.5868 INTNED=-0.8570 INTNEM=-0.8388 INTNSL=0.5493 INTVKL=-0.7961 NPSHYD=0.5872 NUCLEAR=-0.2912 OCGT=0.5317 OTHER=0.4391 WIND=-0.7778.
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 Tue Apr 29 07:21:08 UTC 2025; generation time 5604ms.
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]