Wind and gas continued their campaigns for the majority of Britain’s electricity mix as they produced 33.3% and 35.7% of power respectively in January 2024.
According to National Grid ESO’s (ESO) GB electricity mix data published on X, formerly Twitter, imports also spiked in the second half of January, jumping from providing an estimated average of 3.6% to the Britian’s electricity mix between 8 January and 18 January, to an average of roughly 10% from 21 January to 31 January.
As previously covered by Current±, this leap began when Storm Isha – which the Met Office called “the most significant major wind storm to affect the UK since storm Eunice” in 2022 – hit the UK on 21 January, seeing imports jump from 1.8% on 18 January to 11.2% three days later, remaining above 6% for the remainder of the year.
ESO statistics reveal that Britain imported a total of 2,921GWh of energy in January, more than double what it reported (1,015GWh).
As illustrated by the graph above, the 99mph gusts recorded during Storm Isha saw a wind generation boom, spiking from producing only 26.5% of the UK’s electricity mix on 18 January to 56.7% on 21 January.
Conversely, gas production plummeted between these dates falling by over 35 percentage points from 51.8% on 18 January to 21 January, to never exceed a 38% majority for the rest of the month.
According to the ESO 47% of Britain’s electricity came from low-carbon sources with an 83% peak zero carbon share. on 1 January at 9:30pm.
