GB Electricity Market

The GB Electricity market covers England, Scotland and Wales, and operates electricity wholesale markets, balancing markets, ancillary services markets, green certificate markets and capacity mechanisms. The GB Energy market runs at a frequency of 50Hz.

The GB Energy Market is powered by a diverse set of generation assets. Alongside our net zero ambitions the carbon intensity of these assets has change dramatically in the last 20 years, with coal fired generation being completely phased out in 2024. 

Interestingly, the GB Energy Market has one of the largest fleets of Utility Scale batteries in the world and a rapidly growing offshore wind portfolio harnessing the natural resources in the North Sea. Gas fired generation still supplies a large portion of demand, which is supplemented by nuclear, biogas, PV and generation imported from neighbouring countries via a number of large interconnectors. 

Peak power demand in the GB Energy Market is about 45GW, note this is calculated as total demand net of embedded generation. In recent years we have seen a large push towards electrification as well as energy efficiency, which has meant total demand has dropped slightly. 

With very ambitious vehicle electrification targets, sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles are banned from 2030, we expect total electricity demand to increase. Importantly, demand from vehicles and newer energy assets such as heat pumps is deemed to be flexible, so all though total demand may increase peak demand should be less impacted.