Britain has broken its record for ‘greening the grid’, with 25 hours coming from 100% clean electricity in December, according to new analysis from Imperial College London for Drax Electric Insights.
This is one of the key findings from the the Drax Electric Insights Q4 2022 report, which suggests that there was 2.9GW of surplus clean power – that sourced from biomass, hydro, wind, solar and nuclear – generated in December.
Despite this surplus generation, the need for inertia and flexibility meant that fossil fuel generation was still required during this period, but that the minimum safe amount of fossil fuels is continuously falling. This is helping the country move towards periods of totally net zero electricity generation by 2025, in line with National Grid ESO’s target.
The electricity generation mix over the last week of 2022. Periods when total supply from low-carbon sources exceeded demand are highlighted in pale green. Image: Drax Electric Insights.
The report found that during 2022 as a whole there were nearly 100 hours where the grid delivered more clean power than it needed.
“Britain’s power grid has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last decade with surplus clean electricity having switched from being a pipe dream to becoming a reality. Electricity is the only form of energy where we produce more than we consume – in comparison to our coal and gas requirements where 60-75% are still imported from abroad,” said Dr Iain Staffell of Imperial College London, and lead author of the quarterly Drax Electric Insights report.
Read more: Current+
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