The UK’s electricity was the cleanest ever in 2024, new analysis has found.
This is because the UK has phased out coal and is now getting less than half as much electricity from burning fossil fuels as a decade ago, while renewable generation has more than doubled, the analysis by energy news website Carbon Brief found.
In total, fossil fuels made up just 29% of the UK’s electricity in 2024 – the lowest level on record – while renewables reached a record-high 45% and nuclear was another 13%.
As a result, each unit of electricity generated in 2024 was associated with an average of just 124g of CO2, compared with a “carbon intensity” of 419gCO2 per kilowatt hour (kWh) in 2014.
Other key insights from the data include:
- In 2024, the country generated just 91 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity from fossil fuels – mainly gas, as coal was phased out in September – down from 203TWh in 2014 (-55%).
- Renewable sources more than doubled from 65TWh in 2014 to 143TWh in 2024 (+122%).
- Gas-fired power stations remained the UK’s single-largest source of electricity in 2024, generating some 88TWh (28%), just ahead of wind at 84TWh (26%).
- The remaining sources of electricity in 2024 were nuclear (41TWh, 13%), biomass (40TWh, 13%), imports (33TWh, 11%) and solar (14TWh, 4%).
- Some 58% of electricity – or 64% excluding imports – came from clean sources, both records, but a long way off the government’s target of at least 95% clean power by 2030.
- The reduction in the carbon intensity of electricity means that an electric vehicle (EV) now has lifecycle CO2 savings of 70% over a petrol car, up from only 50% in 2014.
- While figures from the National Energy System Operator (NESO) show wind having generated more electricity than gas in 2024, these numbers exclude significant amounts of gas generation, particularly from “combined heat and power” units at industrial sites.
When accounting for all plants burning gas for power in the UK, the fuel remained as the single-largest source of electricity in 2024, slightly ahead of wind.
However, increasing wind power capacity as new projects are completed in the coming months – and below-average wind speeds in 2024 – mean wind is likely to generate more electricity than gas in 2025.
Carbon Brief has published an annual analysis of the UK’s electricity generation in 2023, 2021, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016.
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