Live UK wholesale electricity prices, day-ahead and balancing market, the live generation mix (gas, wind, nuclear, solar, biomass, interconnectors), grid frequency, system imbalance, demand profile and the gas-to-power spread that decides whether CCGT plants run or sit idle. The fastest commodity in Britain.
Real-time stack of who's keeping the lights on right now. Updated every 5 minutes from the National Grid ESO data feed. Includes BMRS-reported generation plus interconnector flows.
Plain English: Gas is doing the heavy lifting (38% of the mix right now), with wind a strong number two. Nuclear is plodding along providing the floor. We're a net importer on the interconnectors at 3.2 GW — pulling from France (nuclear) and Norway (hydro). When wind drops, that gas slice grows fast — and so do prices.
The UK grid runs at 50.00 Hz. When supply matches demand, frequency holds. When supply is short, frequency drifts down. The balancing market and the National Grid frequency-response services keep it inside a tight 0.2 Hz band. That tightness has a price — visible right here.
Nat Grid ESO has been calling on Bid-Offer Acceptances heavily today. System Imbalance Price at £124.40/MWh — well above the day-ahead. That's the balancing premium: the grid is paying up to keep the lights on through evening peak.
Five pressure dials for the UK power market. Each summarises a layer that drives wholesale prices.
Spark spread (clean baseload − gas − carbon) at £6/MWh. Tight. CCGT plants only turning on when really needed. When wind drops, this spread blows out fast and prices spike.
UK wind running at 34% capacity factor vs 38% norm for May. Grid has had to pull more gas + interconnector. That's the +£8/MWh premium baked into today's prices.
UK ETS at £62/tCO₂. Adds ~£22/MWh to a CCGT's running cost. Combined with gas at NBP 112p, CCGT short-run marginal cost is ~£68/MWh — almost the day-ahead clear.
3.2 GW flowing IN — France (nuclear) and Norway (hydro) cheaper than UK clear. IFA, IFA2, BritNed, Eleclink all importing. Caps how high UK prices can run before EU arbitrage kicks in.
Evening peak will be tight — system short, gas marginal, wind weak. Off-peak benign. Watch 17:00–20:00 settlement periods for the imbalance prints. Don't fade a sudden frequency dip.
Six themes that move UK power. Plain-English status — stable, watch or elevated.
Wind capacity has scaled fast (~28 GW now) but its variance dominates short-term price moves. A 10pp drop in wind capacity factor adds ~£12/MWh to day-ahead clear. The biggest single driver of UK power volatility.
UK fleet retiring fast. Hartlepool, Heysham 1 closures on horizon. Each GW of baseload off the grid lifts marginal CCGT run hours. Hinkley Point C runs delayed — supply gap widens before it's plugged.
UK is structurally a net importer ~6 GW capability. France nuclear availability and Norwegian hydro reservoir levels both feed UK prices directly. EDF outage = UK lights cost more. Pay attention to French maintenance.
CCGT still the marginal price-setter. So UK power is genuinely a derivative of NBP gas + UK ETS carbon. When NBP rises 10p/therm, day-ahead lifts £6–8/MWh. The gas desk and the power desk read the same tape.
BESS (battery energy storage) growing fast — ~5 GW now. Provides frequency response and arbitrages day-ahead vs imbalance. Smooths volatility but small relative to total system. Watch growth rate.
EV adoption + heat-pump rollout slowly adding 0.5–1.0 GW peak demand per year. Industrial demand mostly flat. Combined with retiring nuclear, the supply–demand wedge is real and structural, not cyclical.
The single number that decides whether a CCGT plant runs at midnight. Wholesale power minus gas cost minus carbon — what's left is the spark spread. Wide = plants run = supply rises = prices fall. Narrow = plants sit idle = supply drops = prices spike.
Very tight. Below the level that incentivises CCGT plants to run flat-out. Marginal plants sit ready to come on only when the system needs them. That's why wind drops have a non-linear price impact right now.
Gas at NBP 112p/therm × heat rate 7.5 GJ/MWh + UK ETS at £62/tCO₂ × 0.36 tCO₂/MWh + variable O&M. That's the floor a CCGT needs above day-ahead to bother running.
UK ETS at £62/tCO₂ adds ~£22 to every MWh of CCGT-generated power. That's nearly a quarter of the total day-ahead clear. ETS price moves matter for power even more than they matter for gas.
Winter '26 baseload trades £42/MWh above Summer '26. Wide. The market is pricing real winter risk — cold snap, wind drought, nuclear outage. If NBP softens through summer, that wedge narrows quickly.