National

Friday 19 March 2010

National Electricity Meters

The meters on this page show the amount of electricity the whole of the UK is using in real-time. At this geographic scale, seasonal and daily changes in the weather, major television events such as football matches or national days off such as holidays tend to have the biggest effects on demand.

Real Time Displays

Jon Plowman

Real-time demand

This meter compares the amount of electricity being used by the entire population of the United Kingdom now (green needle) and at same time yesterday (red needle).

In the winter most of the UK's power stations are working and produce about 55 Gigawatts (GW) of electricity during periods of peak demand.

The biggest coal power station in the UK, Drax, generates just over 3.9 GW of electricity, but many small power stations generate between 500 Megawatts (MW) and 1GW. A wind turbine typically produces 1 - 5 MW.

Cumulative demand

This meter compares the total amount of electricity that everyone in the UK has used since midnight this morning, with the equivalent period yesterday.

A 500 MW power station left on for an hour generates 500 MWh of electricity and a 1MW wind turbine running for an hour produces 1MWh of electricity.

Demand Curves

The red curve in this graph shows how the demand for electricity in the UK went up and down over the course of yesterday. The green curve shows today's demand curve.

Electricity CO2 Emissions

This meter shows you an estimate of the number of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) the United Kingdom's electricity sector has emitted since midnight this morning.

Electricity Bill

This meter shows you an estimate of the National Electricity Bill for the United Kingdon since midnight this morning. In a typical day the UK uses over £100 million pounds worth of electricity. This is roughly the equivalent of every house in the UK spending £5 a day on electricity.