10tothe22
Kate MorleyThe sun is shining, the wind is blowing a gale, and just 2.4% of British electricity is coming from fossil fuels. See the live data at https://grid.iamkate.com.
Donald R Noble@katemorley is 1.4GW a record low for gas? Don’t think I’ve seen it so low before
Cleethorpes Info Bot 
@drnoble @katemorley It's usually quite a bit higher just in case. They must be confident they won't need to switch it in suddenly.
joosteto
penguin42@drnoble We're down to 0.95GW now! @katniawatkins do you keep any record-low values like you do for the record max for the wind (which we're just nudging!)
@katemorley Could be on track to beat the 30.7GW of renewable energy generation on Tue, 17 Mar 2026. Just think, it could be 100% renewable were it not for the curtailment of wind generation due to poor infrastructure 😩 .
BashStKid@katemorley That’s great, but my recycling bags are now in the next valley.
Robert Wiltshire@katemorley That's a beautifully produced dashboard.
Jon Tringham@katemorley could be an extra ~3.8gw of wind when the Dogger Bank and Sofia wind farms are at full potential.
Chip Butty@jontringham @katemorley there will be a lot of curtailment too.
@otfrom @katemorley yep, just realised the screenshot shows ~3.1gw of curtailment, which is more than gas generation. So could be totally free of non-renewables today if we had the transmission lines from north to south.
Fardels BearWhat a very useful website. Thanks. Politicians bang on about the UK needing fossil fuels and nuclear, but it seems to me that we could repace them both with renewables, given a strong lead from the government.
Juffo-WupCan't build nukes without nuke-lear. 🤷
Henry III@mndflayr @riggbeck @katemorley We can't store electricity at the moment so nuclear is the only carbon free back-up power. We will need to invest in alternative storage solutions. Batteries are the obvious alternative or pumping water up into hydro dams during over production of energy for example.
@johnhenrythe3rd @riggbeck @katemorley
Building storage is faster and cheaper than building nuclear power plants. 🤷
Julia Robinson
nomadbynature@katemorley how relevant 😆😆😆
Ajay Karwal@katemorley I work at National Grid and have shared this in our Teams channels.
Don't be shocked if someone reaches out to offer you a job!
Don't be shocked if someone reaches out to offer you a job!
Matt@ajaykarwal @katemorley You might also be interested in this: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/GB/live/fifteen_minutes
happyborg@katemorley ...but we still have to pay for it as if it costs the same as natural gas: 🤔
James Holden@happyborg @katemorley Not necessarily, there are wholesale linked tariffs like Octopus Agile. My total electricity bill so far today is -97p (yes, minus).
kat donegan 🇵🇸✊@jamesholden @happyborg @katemorley i'm on that tariff, but my bill is at an all-time high. do you have solar &/or a home battery? what am i doing wrong? :(
@kathimmel @happyborg @katemorley Yes, solar and battery. It also intelligently charges when it’s cheap to ride out the peak rates. You can see what it’s up to here: https://jamesholden.net/power.html
@jamesholden @happyborg @katemorley thank you. i'm grateful for your reply. i live in a flat, so it's still difficult (& beyond my financial means) to implement solar & a battery. been hoping that decent portable power stations would become more affordable; but, plug-in solar is on the horizon.
jeezo, you're paying per 57 hours what i pay for a day (in a three-bed flat that houses two adult people).
jeezo, you're paying per 57 hours what i pay for a day (in a three-bed flat that houses two adult people).
@kathimmel @happyborg @katemorley Yeah and I expect we use quite a bit more too. On a standard tariff, our electricity bill would be £3100/year.
@jamesholden @happyborg @katemorley woah! well, i'm just happy that there are people like you who care enough to do this & that it turns out a win/win. :)
@kathimmel @happyborg @katemorley I just wish it was more accessible to more people. When you have real world experience and figures, the social media renewables naysayers just sound utterly ridiculous.
@happyborg @katemorley The quickest way to break the stupid marginal price system would be to allow people to sell their generated surplus to others, within, say, a 30km radius, and ignore the marginal price targets. And that power is delivered first, backing out the gas gen.
Yes, that would need an aggregation system for billing, but it’s not impossible.
If I sell for, say, 10p/kWh, with a 1p transmission cost, my village could all pay 11p/kWh and not 25-35p.
Yes, that would need an aggregation system for billing, but it’s not impossible.
If I sell for, say, 10p/kWh, with a 1p transmission cost, my village could all pay 11p/kWh and not 25-35p.
Fabien@katemorley Thanks a lot, very interesting!
I'm curious about total all time demand. Why is the graph up so much for 2026? Simply because it's extrapolating based on high demand winter months? Or real increase?
Otherwise interesting the demand is trending down despite more usage put on the grid (heat pumps, EV…)
Phil Dennis-Jordan@fabienmarry Hopefully @katemorley can clarify, but my guess is that 2026 is still young and so far only has only had winter months flowing into what I assume is a mean value. I would definitely expect grid demand to be higher in winter.
(Regarding the downward trend of the 2010s, I think much of the developed world has seen a similar trend thanks to efficiency improvements in lighting & domestic appliances.)
(Regarding the downward trend of the 2010s, I think much of the developed world has seen a similar trend thanks to efficiency improvements in lighting & domestic appliances.)
@fabienmarry (Self-consumption/storage of private PV generation at scale alone will probably show up similarly, but offset by increased use of EVs and heat pumps as you say. So that'll be an interesting one to watch for sure.) /cc @katemorley
Julian Schwarzenbach@fabienmarry @katemorley That graph is also really interesting as it shows how much reliance on fossil fuels has decreased over time
Ariaflame@fabienmarry @katemorley Heat pumps are more efficient than electric radiant heaters. EVs more efficient than petrol engines. Depends what the graphs include.
tootbrute@katemorley that's awesome. Wonder if #taiwan has this. Forget the Olympics, we should have countries compete in these sorts of metrics.
@katemorley Fake news 😂 . My home solar is generating 4kw at the moment.
@johnhenrythe3rd @katemorley If it's anything like here rooftop PV isn't counted under generation, but under reduced load.
Thomas Lee ✅ 
@katemorley we have solar panels and a battery. In the month so far, our house has used 327 kwh. 82% of that came from solar and the battery. On a sunny day in March, this rises to 90%. In June and July,our electricity costs are NEGATIVE. Imagine the impact if more solar was installed.
ahnlak@katemorley well now I'm going to have spend the morning watching it like a hawk to see if we set a new wind record today!
Steve Scott@ahnlak @katemorley I'm guessing we'll have to curtail wind as the solar starts to add generation
@wishy @katemorley ahh, fair point
Graeme 🏴@katemorley That's good but it assumes none of the power from interconnects with Europe is fossil. That's at 3.6%
Also - it's bloody cold and windy - good fro windfarms but bad for overall demand! March winds are fine but let's get spring back! 😀
Also - it's bloody cold and windy - good fro windfarms but bad for overall demand! March winds are fine but let's get spring back! 😀
@pa27 @katemorley But on the positive side solar PV works more efficiently when it is cold.
Ross Burton@katemorley have you considered exposing the mix from interconnects? I was pointed to https://www.rte-france.com/en/data-publications/eco2mix/power-generation-energy-source for France, for example.
RichBartlett 
@katemorley I guess the wind is blowing really hard because its having to squeeze through the narrow gap at the Straits of Hormuz? XD
James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺@RichBartlett @katemorley Imagine the sound
Bogdan Buduroiu@katemorley that's great, and really love your visualisation, but let's look at Paul Allen's (industrialised nation) energy consumption
Natasha@katemorley Definitely sunny and windy here.
Wildeng@katemorley where have I been so far? I just discovered this.
Nice job!! And I'm amazed that renewables are doing so well
Nice job!! And I'm amazed that renewables are doing so well
Sparrow 🎄🎁@katemorley : yay! 🤩😇
Dźwiedziu
Horst Albermann 🇪🇺🇩🇪@katemorley
The situation is similar across Europe. For iOS users, the following app provides the latest figures:
https://apps.apple.com/app/id1224594248
The situation is similar across Europe. For iOS users, the following app provides the latest figures:
https://apps.apple.com/app/id1224594248
A-nom-nom-nom-aly BSC SSCYet people are still paying for their electric as if was 100% produced by gas.
Khurram Wadee ✅@katemorley Thanks for the site. I use it all the time to monitor the energy mix in the UK.
inthebatcave.uk@katemorley snowing here on and off as well!
Gabriel Markley@katemorley thank you this thread and post made my morning its both informative, curious, and positive in a time I find most feeds the opposite. Great job improving the day!
Rachel Barker@katemorley If I remember correctly, the grid has the technical ability to go down to zero fossil fuel usage as of last year, but this is the closest I've seen it in practice! Down to <1GW at the moment, compared to >32GW of renewables!
(plus about 1GW of net imports, but I don't know if there's a good way to get a breakdown of that by likely production method?)
F4GRX Sébastien@katemorley 1.22 Giggowatts is available!
Russ Garrett@katemorley I'm enjoying the edit updates on this post since I boosted it :)
Steve@katemorley seeing that makes me happy with my panels contributing the odd kilowatt.