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How the Great Britain grid made the case for the importance of demand-side flexibility in grid decarbonization. 🔎 The Great Britain grid has shown great progress in grid decarbonization over the last years. It significantly reduced its reliance on fossil fuels while sourcing 40% of its electricity from wind and solar in 2024. However, the first weeks of October show the massive challenges ahead to further progress on decarbonizing the grid. 🌬️ When Storm Amy hit Europe, GB ran almost entirely on wind generation during the night of October 5th. On the graph, this is seen as the net load (load minus wind and solar) approaching 0. This concluded a period of 30 days during which GB ran on more than 60% renewables, with 24 hours at almost 80%. 😥 Days later, wind generation dropped, and so did the share of renewables that reached below 20%. At the same time, gas generation was multiplied by more than 6, and the grid carbon intensity soared. 🤔 What can we learn from it? 3 lessons below: Interconnections are crucial for grid balancing. Net load fluctuations provoked by renewables present substantial challenges for grid stability. The strong correlation between net load and net imports shows how crucial interconnections were in maintaining it. It enables the grid to export excess renewable power and import when renewables are not generating enough. We need more storage, but also long-duration storage. The grid carbon intensity increased from 60gCO2/kWh to more than 250gCO2/kWh in about 24 hours and remained over 300gCO2/kWh for multiple days. Short-term storage helped reduce this increase, but we need long-duration storage that can discharge up to a week later. This is where demand-side flexibility comes into play! Installing more interconnections and storage is key for grid decarbonization, but it requires time, investments, and resources. In parallel, electrification brings more flexible loads online that can be leveraged. With 72-hour forecasts of renewable generation and prices, these loads can be shifted to different times to consume cleaner and cheaper electricity while helping the grid decarbonize. At Electricity Maps, we provide all real-time and forecasted signals you need to shift flexible electricity consumption in all grids worldwide. Learn more here on how you can reduce costs, cut emissions, and participate in demand-response programs with these forecasts:

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