| 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 57% carbon emissions by choosing the best time to run your washing and other major loads.
Latest data is from Tue Aug 11 07:45:00 UTC 2026. 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 138gCO2/kWh including transmission and distribution losses of 7%.
Latest available grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) is approximately 129gCO2/kWh at Tue Aug 11 07:45:00 UTC 2026 over 24354MW of generation, with a rolling average over 24h of 145gCO2/kWh.
Minimum grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 87gCO2/kWh at Mon Aug 10 11:25:00 UTC 2026.
Maximum grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 199gCO2/kWh at Mon Aug 10 20:10:00 UTC 2026.
Average/mean grid generation carbon intensity (ignoring transmission/distribution losses) was approximately 145gCO2/kWh over the sample data set, with an effective end-user intensity including transmission and distribution losses of 155gCO2/kWh.
| Recent mean GMT hourly generation intensity gCO2/kWh (average=145); *now (=129) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Current/latest fuel mix at Tue Aug 11 07:45:00 UTC 2026: BIOMASS@2456MW CCGT@5069MW COAL@0MW INTELEC@996MW INTEW@0MW INTFR@1781MW INTGRNL@0MW INTIFA2@991MW INTIRL@0MW INTNED@1051MW INTNEM@921MW INTNSL@1397MW INTVKL@1426MW NPSHYD@310MW NUCLEAR@3799MW OCGT@0MW OIL@0MW OTHER@1182MW PS@106MW WIND@2869MW.
Current draw-down from storage is 106MW.
Generation by fuel category (may overlap):
Overall generation intensity (kgCO2/kWh) computed using the following fuel year-2026 intensities (other fuels/sources are ignored): BIOMASS=0.12 CCGT=0.394 COAL=0.937 INTELEC=0.018 INTEW=0.322 INTFR=0.018 INTGRNL=0.322 INTIFA2=0.018 INTIRL=0.322 INTNED=0.199 INTNEM=0.105 INTNSL=0.009 INTVKL=0.075 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=0.6549 CCGT=0.9755 INTELEC=-0.6098 INTFR=-0.4874 INTIFA2=-0.6245 INTNED=-0.3951 INTNEM=-0.3243 INTNSL=0.0742 INTVKL=0.1204 NPSHYD=0.8951 NUCLEAR=-0.2274 OCGT=0.3752 OTHER=0.2568 WIND=-0.7366.
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 Aug 11 07:51:07 UTC 2026; generation time 5367ms.
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.
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