With December crowned Britain’s greenest energy month of the year, Current± reviewed the nation’s electricity mix in 2023.
In a post on X, National Grid ESO confirmed that December experienced the cleanest energy mix of any other month that year, with wind providing 41.2% of the nation’s electricity overall, peaking at 56% between 8:00 and 8:30 on 21 December.
This time period also saw a new wind record of 21.8GW, beating its previous record of 21.62GW set in January.
In total, electricity generated on December had a carbon intensity average of 122gCO2/kWh, the lowest of that year.
According to the ESO, the high wind levels throughout December meant that 60% of the UK’s electricity came from low-carbon sources, peaking at 87% on 28 December at 14:00.
Following this success, Current± used National Grid ESO’s monthly electricity statistics to look back on how Britain’s electricity mix changed throughout 2023.
A record-breaking year
Commenting on the electricity mix of 2023, National Grid ESO noted that Britain was “moving closer to our ambition of periods of zero-carbon operations by 2025.”
This includes a number of low carbon records made in 2023 such as:
- Wind generation provides over 21GW of electricity for the first time
- Maximum zero carbon record of 87.6% made on 4 January
- Lowest carbon intensity over the year at 27gCO2/kWh
- Highest solar power input recorded on 20 April at 10.97GW
Gas remains Britain’s primary energy source
Overall, gas produced the majority of Britain’s electricity for 9 months within the year, beaten only by wind in January, October and December.
December 2023 also saw the second lowest input from gas at 25.8%, almost half of the electricity produced by wind in the same month.
Contrarily June saw the the most gas-intensive electricity mix, with the fossil fuel producing 36.9% of Britain’s electricity, and the lowest input from wind at 19.2%.
Despite gas maintaining the majority of Britain’s electricity mix last year, recent analysis from Carbon Brief revealed that electricity generated by fossil fuels in 2023 fell by 22% year-on-year to the lowest level since 1957.
In total fossil fuels made up 33% of Britain’s electricity mix in 2023, 31% (98TWh) specifically made up by gas, demonstrating our lowest use of gas since 2015, according to the ESO.
Carbon Brief attributed the decline of fossil fuels to two factors: renewables increasing sixfold (by 113TWh) from 2008, and reduced electricity demand, which decreased by 21% (83TWh) since 2008.
Wind and imports: an inverse relationship
The share of electricity mix taken by imports is inversely correlated with the amount of electricity produced by wind, for the majority of the year.
For example, the highest share imports experienced was in May at 18.3%, which coincidentally was the second lowest share experienced by wind (19.6%). Only June saw a lower share than this for wind at 19.2%
December on the other hand saw the reverse with the highest share of wind experienced (41.2%) alongside the lowest share gained by imports (7.1%).
This inverse relationship is a real-time example of how increasing renewables can decrease Britain’s reliance on international markets.
The 2023 electricity mix
Last year, saw one of Britain’s cleanest electricity mixes since 2015, with December 2023 being the 15th month in a row in which low-carbon generation produced more electricity than fossil fuels.
Overall low-carbon sources provided 51% of the electricity used by Britain last year, compared to 32% from gas.
The total electricity mix for 2023 is as follows:
- Gas: 32%
- Wind: 29.4%
- Nuclear: 14.2%
- Biomass: 5%
- Coal: 1%
- Solar: 4.9%
- Imports: 10.7%
- Hydro: 1.8%
- Storage: 1%
This article has been updated following National Grid ESO publishing its 2023 electricity review.
