| Grid is OK; but you could still avoid CO2 emissions by postponing running big appliances such as dishwashers or washing machines |
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You might have saved as much as 34% carbon emissions by choosing the best time to run your washing and other major loads.
Latest data is from Fri Aug 17 17:25:00 UTC 2018. 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 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 if you have local microgeneration that can cover much/all of the load.
There is argument (eg here) 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 194gCO2/kWh including transmission and distribution losses of 7%.
Latest available grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) is approximately 181gCO2/kWh at Fri Aug 17 17:25:00 UTC 2018 over 29174MW of generation, with a rolling average over 24h of 176gCO2/kWh.
Minimum grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 140gCO2/kWh at Fri Aug 17 00:00:00 UTC 2018.
Maximum grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 209gCO2/kWh at Thu Aug 16 20:35:00 UTC 2018.
Average/mean grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 176gCO2/kWh over the sample data set, with an effective end-user intensity including transmission and distribution losses of 188gCO2/kWh.
| Recent mean GMT hourly generation intensity gCO2/kWh (average=176); *now (=181) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 00 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17* |
| Mean GMT hourly generation GW (all, zero-carbon) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Current/latest fuel mix at Fri Aug 17 17:25:00 UTC 2018: BIOMASS@1617MW CCGT@10516MW COAL@0MW INTEW@235MW INTFR@1998MW INTIRL@137MW INTNED@1060MW NPSHYD@287MW NUCLEAR@7172MW OCGT@0MW OIL@0MW OTHER@143MW PS@183MW WIND@5826MW.
Current draw-down from storage is 183MW.
Generation by fuel category (may overlap):
Overall generation intensity (kgCO2/kWh) computed using the following fuel intensities (other fuels/sources are ignored): BIOMASS=0.3 CCGT=0.36 COAL=0.91 INTEW=0.45 INTFR=0.09 INTIRL=0.45 INTNED=0.55 NPSHYD=0.0 NUCLEAR=0.0 OCGT=0.48 OIL=0.61 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=0.6189 CCGT=0.9647 INTEW=-0.6643 INTFR=0.7988 INTIRL=-0.4116 INTNED=0.5292 NPSHYD=0.7447 NUCLEAR=0.0798 OTHER=-0.0861 WIND=-0.2845.
Key to fuel codes:
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.
This page updated at Fri Aug 17 17:31:07 UTC 2018; generation time 5036ms.
See also:
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