See what Great Britain's power stations, wind farms and interconnectors are producing right now, how clean the electricity is in your region, and how the mix has changed every month since 2009. The live figures update every half hour.
Great Britain's electricity right now
Loading the live figures from NESO…
Every year since 2009
Tap a year to see its months.
- Gas
- Coal
- Nuclear
- Wind
- Solar
- Hydro
- Biomass
- Imports
- Storage
- Other
Carbon intensity, g CO2 per kWh
Supported by National Energy SO Open Data. Live figures: NESO Carbon Intensity API (carbonintensity.org.uk), CC BY 4.0. History: NESO Historic GB Generation Mix, worked into months and years by Carbon Recycling. NESO does not endorse us.
Every year since 2009
| Year | g CO2/kWh | Wind | Gas | Nuclear | Imports | Biomass | Solar | Coal | TWh |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (so far) | 141 | 31% | 23.7% | 11.6% | 14.6% | 6.9% | 8.5% | 0% | 232.8 |
| 2025 | 130 | 29.7% | 26.7% | 11.8% | 15.2% | 6.9% | 6.5% | 0% | 289.2 |
| 2024 | 128 | 29.4% | 25.8% | 13.7% | 15.7% | 6.7% | 5% | 0.6% | 280.9 |
| 2023 | 151 | 28.8% | 31.6% | 13.9% | 12.2% | 4.9% | 4.9% | 1% | 274.6 |
| 2022 | 183 | 26.6% | 38.4% | 15.4% | 5.6% | 5.2% | 4.6% | 1.5% | 289.8 |
| 2021 | 187 | 21.8% | 37.7% | 15.2% | 10.3% | 6.7% | 4.1% | 1.7% | 284.9 |
| 2020 | 173 | 24.8% | 34.5% | 17.2% | 8.4% | 6.5% | 4.4% | 1.6% | 275.5 |
| 2019 | 195 | 20% | 39.3% | 18.1% | 8.6% | 5.9% | 3.9% | 2% | 291.5 |
| 2018 | 222 | 17.2% | 38.6% | 20.3% | 7.4% | 5.4% | 3.8% | 5.2% | 298.3 |
| 2017 | 249 | 14.7% | 39.7% | 21.8% | 6.5% | 0.7% | 3.5% | 6.9% | 300.7 |
| 2016 | 282 | 10% | 42% | 22% | 6.7% | 0% | 3.3% | 9.2% | 303.1 |
| 2015 | 363 | 10.4% | 27.7% | 21.6% | 7.6% | 0% | 2.4% | 24.4% | 304.7 |
| 2014 | 424 | 8.2% | 28% | 19.3% | 7.5% | 0% | 1.3% | 31.2% | 309.9 |
| 2013 | 478 | 6.6% | 24.9% | 20.5% | 5.5% | 0% | 0.6% | 39% | 322.4 |
| 2012 | 510 | 4.8% | 25.7% | 20.4% | 4.2% | 0% | 0% | 42.4% | 323.8 |
| 2011 | 461 | 3.7% | 39.4% | 20.1% | 2.7% | 0% | 0% | 32.1% | 322.3 |
| 2010 | 473 | 1.4% | 46.9% | 17.5% | 2.1% | 0% | 0% | 30.7% | 335.2 |
| 2009 | 459 | 1.3% | 44.8% | 19.7% | 2% | 0% | 0% | 30% | 329.2 |
Worked example
A business using 100,000 kWh a year would have caused about 45.9 tonnes of CO2 at the 2009 average and 13 tonnes at the 2025 average, with exactly the same electricity. That fall is the grid, not the business. In a carbon report you use the government factor for the year (131 g CO2e per kWh in 2026), and say that part of any drop comes from the grid getting cleaner.
How the figures are worked out
- Live: NESO's Carbon Intensity API gives the generation mix and carbon intensity for each half hour, nationally and for the 14 distribution network regions. We fetch it at most once every five minutes and show it as published.
- History: NESO's historic generation mix gives every half hour since 1 January 2009. We add up each fuel's output over the month and year and divide by all generation, and weight the half-hourly carbon intensity by output.
- Imports are electricity coming in through interconnectors from Europe and Norway. Wind includes the smaller wind farms connected to local networks, which NESO estimates. Storage is pumped hydro and batteries when they are discharging.
How Carbon Recycling helps
Carbon Recycling turns each site's electricity, gas and fuel into the figures a carbon report needs, with the right government factor for every year. For UK sites, your dashboard shows the live grid for your region and the cleanest hours to run heavy loads, and your reports explain how much of any change came from the grid rather than from you.
Data sources and licences
- Supported by National Energy SO Open Data. Source: NESO, Historic GB Generation Mix (NESO Open Data Licence v1.0).
- Carbon intensity data from the National Energy System Operator's Carbon Intensity API (carbonintensity.org.uk), CC BY 4.0.
- Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: DESNZ, greenhouse gas reporting conversion factors.
Monthly and yearly figures are Carbon Recycling's own totals of NESO's half-hourly data. NESO does not endorse us.
Embed this tool on your website
Paste this code into your page and your readers can use the tool without leaving it. It's free. Please keep the credit link under the frame, so readers can see where the figures come from.