Great Britain Electricity Demand: dataset and characteristics
Great Britain electricity demand is shaped by winter heating load, weekday versus weekend behavior, and industrial activity. The GB load curve shows pronounced daily ramps and seasonal peaks in winter evenings.
Great Britain Electricity Demand
Daily Great Britain electricity demand (CSV)
Download a clean CSV time series for analysis, reporting, and forecasting. The dataset covers January 2020 to December 2025 with daily resolution. If you need power demand datasets with different granularity or areas, see Data Access.
Demand highlights
Annual variability
On a high level thatre are two demand regimes winter and summer with transition months in March to May and September to end of October.
Great Britain electricity demand typically peaks in winter specially January and February due to heating load and shorter daylight hours.
Summer demand tend to be mainly flat from May to September with the lowest point usually in August combining weather and holidays.
Seasonal swings are moderate compared to neighbouring countries such as France whose sensitivity to demand is really high (see France demand), but meaningful for price formation and system balance. In winter, average demand on a monthly basis peaks around 40 GW while its lowest point is in August around 30 GW.
Daily variability
The Great Britain electricity demand profile typically shows a morning peak around 08:00-09:00 and a stronger evening peak around 18:00-19:00.
Daily valleys are commonly observed near 03:00, with weekend demand visibly lower than weekdays.
Industrial demand shapes the daytime plateau, especially on weekdays.
Other factors
Holidays and calendar effects (Christmas, Easter, bank holidays) can materially reduce Great Britain electricity demand.
Temperature is a dominant driver; cold snaps can quickly add several gigawatts of load.
Behind-the-meter solar PV can reduce measured demand during midday hours in high-sun months.
Access notes for Great Britain electricity demand
This page provides a public summary. Additional interface and API availability may apply for extended time ranges, alternative granularities, and export.
Annual, monthly, hourly, and quarter-hourly coverage where available
Coverage across European power markets and natural gas datasets
Exports via Excel, CSV, and API for supported datasets
If access is already enabled, you can open the interface.