Electricity supplies will be sufficient over coming months, according to National Grid ESO’s Summer Outlook 2023.
The electricity system operator’s latest analysis reveals Britain will have sufficient gas and electricity supplies to meet consumer demand.
It predicts a peak summer electricity demand of 28.3 GW, with a minimum demand of 15.6 GW. Both of these figures are slightly down on 2022.
The report also suggests minimum available generation of 31.1 GW, comfortably enough power to meet the nation’s needs without any reliance on electricity imports.
Key Themes From Summer Outlook 2023
- Security of supply: there will be sufficient supply to meet demand at all times. National Grid ESO expects to support exports to neighbouring European countries if needed.
- Managing the system: existing tools will help manage system operability and overcome challenges such as periods of low demand that make grid balancing more difficult.
- Market prices and balancing costs: while wholesale prices have fallen since last summer, they still remain high. So even though balancing costs have reduced, overall prices would still be higher than in summer 2021 before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We expect that summer minimum demands will be slightly lower than those seen across summer 2022, continuing the trend of lower demands over the last couple of years.
“Peak transmission demand is also expected to be lower this summer compared to recent years, as new embedded generation on the Distribution Networks are expected to suppress electricity demand at the transmission level.”
– Fintan Slye, Director, National Grid ESO
Preparations are now underway for the 2023-24 Winter Outlook, which the system operator expects to publish by October at the latest.
