UK Carbon Intensity

About UK Carbon Intensity

The Carbon Intensity API provides programmatic access to carbon intensity data for the electricity system in Great Britain, developed by the National Energy System Operator (NESO). It offers indicative regional carbon intensity trends up to two days ahead of real-time, combining forecast and estimated data. Calculations account for CO2 emissions from electricity generation, including large metered power stations, interconnector imports, transmission and distribution losses, national electricity demand, and embedded wind and solar generation.

The API covers national and regional carbon intensity, generation mix, and statistics endpoints. National endpoints return current, historical, and date-range intensity data along with generation mix breakdowns. Regional endpoints provide intensity data by region, postcode, or region ID for England, Scotland, and Wales, with forward-looking windows of 24 or 48 hours as well as custom date ranges.

The API does not require authentication and returns JSON responses with times in UTC. It is intended for developers building applications that need data on the carbon intensity of the GB electricity grid, such as tools for scheduling energy usage around lower-carbon periods. The API is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Key features

• Current and forecast carbon intensity for Great Britain's electricity by half-hour period
• Historical and forecast lookups by date, date range, or time block
• National generation mix data including forecasts up to 24h ahead
• Regional carbon intensity for England, Scotland, and Wales
• Regional lookups by postcode or region ID
• Statistics endpoints for intensity averages over a date range

Frequently asked questions