What is UK Grid Live?
UK Grid Live is an independent real-time dashboard showing exactly how electricity is being generated and consumed across Great Britain right now. It pulls from four official public data sources every 5 minutes and combines them into a single view that no other dashboard offers.
What makes it different?
Most other dashboards show only transmission-level data — the large power stations that connect directly to the high-voltage grid. UK Grid Live adds embedded generation (rooftop solar, small wind turbines) from the NESO and Sheffield Solar PVLive datasets, giving you the true national demand figure that matches what National Grid ESO publishes.
Data sources
Elexon BMRS (Balancing Mechanism Reporting Service)
The primary source for generation mix data by fuel type. Elexon operates the UK electricity balancing and settlement system. Their FUELINST dataset publishes every 30 minutes and shows actual metered output from every large power station connected to the transmission network.
Carbon Intensity API (NESO & University of Oxford)
Published by the National Energy System Operator in partnership with the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute. Provides carbon intensity forecasts and actuals in gCO₂/kWh, plus the generation mix including estimated embedded generation. Updated every 30 minutes.
Sheffield Solar PVLive
The definitive source for GB solar generation data. Sheffield Solar’s PVLive model estimates output from all GB solar installations — including the 1.4 million rooftop systems that never appear in Elexon data — using satellite irradiance data and a validated ML model. Updated every 30 minutes.
NESO Open Data Portal
The National Energy System Operator publishes embedded wind and solar estimates, demand forecasts, and balancing data. UK Grid Live uses the embedded generation estimates to give you true national demand figures.
Open-Meteo
Free weather API providing wind speed forecasts at 80m hub height for key offshore wind farm locations including Hornsea, Dogger Bank and Whitelee. Used for the weather context card showing why renewable output is high or low.
Octopus Energy API
Public API providing Octopus Agile half-hourly electricity tariff prices in pence per kWh. Around 5 million UK households are on smart time-of-use tariffs. UK Grid Live shows current Agile and wholesale prices side by side.
GIE AGSI / Entsog
Gas Infrastructure Europe and the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas publish daily GB underground gas storage levels. UK Grid Live shows current storage as a percentage of capacity — a key indicator of winter energy security and a major driver of electricity prices.
Methodology: demand vs generation
Elexon’s ITSDO dataset only measures demand at the transmission boundary — it misses electricity that is generated and consumed locally without ever reaching the high-voltage grid. On a sunny day this “embedded generation” can be 8–12 GW of rooftop solar. UK Grid Live adds NESO’s embedded estimates to give you true national demand, matching the figures National Grid ESO uses in its own publications.
Is it free?
Yes, completely. UK Grid Live is independent and funded entirely out of personal interest in energy data. All data comes from free public APIs.
Data licensing
Contains BMRS data © Elexon Limited copyright and database right 2026. Carbon Intensity API data is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence by NESO and the University of Oxford. Sheffield Solar PVLive data is used under their terms of service.
See it live
The dashboard updates every 5 minutes. Open it now to see the current state of the GB electricity grid.
⚡ Open Live Dashboard