UK electricity ‘becoming more British’, less import dependent – analysis

New analysis finds that the UK’s electricity supply has become more British over the past decade

Profile picture of Dr Simon Cran-McGreehin

By Dr Simon Cran-McGreehin

info@eciu.net

Share

Last updated:

Ahead of the UK Government / International Energy Agency energy security summit on 24/25th April, new analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has found that the UK’s electricity supply has become more British over the past decade, with more power coming from UK sources and a falling reliance on foreign fuels such as imported gas for gas power stations. [1]

Looking back over the past 10 years, the UK has become less reliant on imported fuels to generate its electricity, largely due to the rapid expansion of wind and solar power that use no fuels and so don’t rely on foreign energy imports.  Compared to 2014, when around 65% (two-thirds) of the energy used for UK electricity generation was dependent on foreign fuels, in 2024 just under 50% (half) of our electricity supply relied on net imports of energy.

In future, the deployment of more renewables will continue to improve our energy security, even with electricity demand rising as customers switch to EVs and heat pumps. The role of North Sea gas will play an ever-smaller role as production declines, which is the case irrespective of any new licences. [2]

Dr Simon Cran-McGreehin, Head of Analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said:

“UK electricity is becoming more British and this is the net zero emissions target in action, decreasing our demand for foreign gas by boosting homegrown renewables. Gas output from the North Sea has been falling for decades, but British renewables like offshore wind are stepping in to help generate more British electricity. The regulator’s own figures show any new drilling for gas will make minor difference to output, so its renewables that will have to do the heavy lifting on energy security, protecting us from the geopolitics around energy and actors like Putin.

 

“Just like British households, UK industry has suffered from the ongoing gas price crisis which started in 2021 pushing up energy bills, but new renewables will also help to stabilise bills.”

 

Gas accounted for around 30% of the UK’s electricity supply in 2024, but sets the price of electricity 97% of the time, the highest proportion in Europe [3].  Renewables reduce the amount of gas generation that is needed, and so reduce the amount of fuel that is imported.  New renewables also help to reduce the price impact of gas via the Contracts for Difference scheme, where they pay back consumers at times of high gas prices and receive small payments when gas prices are lower. [4]

 

Last year, the Energy Crisis Commission found that the UK remains “dangerously unprepared” [5] for another energy crisis because of its over-reliance on gas and the International Monetary Fund found that the UK was the “worst hit” in Western Europe by the crisis [6] because of its dependency on gas for heating and electricity generation.

 

The Government has committed to reaching clean power by 2030, which means phasing out the use of gas for electricity generation while keeping a ‘strategic reserve’ of gas plants [7] for back-up, but a policy gap remains around transitioning home heating away from the fuel as well as for the mass insulation of UK homes.

The North Sea is a mature basin in decline.  Projections by the regulator based on industry data show that gas production is predicted to drop by 95% by 2050 with new licenses and by 97% without new licenses, so there is little difference in production regardless of the Government’s position on new licensing. [8]

Notes to Editors

 

  1. Analysis of historical trends used Government data from Energy Trends 2 (coal), 3 (oil), 4 (gas), 5 (electricity), and 6 (renewables) data, from 2000 to 2024.  For most generation technologies that use fuel (gas, coal, oil, nuclear, bioenergy), the datasets include the amount of fuel (primary energy) used each year.  Renewables that use no fuels (wind, solar, hydro, etc) were treated as being 100% efficient (as per standard analytical practice used by e.g. DESNZ), in the sense that they do not waste any of a finite resource and the primary energy equals the electricity production.  Summing up the primary energy used by each generation technology gives the annual total required for UK’s electricity supply.  Analysis of the sources of primary energy was conducted on the basis of net imports (i.e. supply minus UK production), which is the most commonly-used metric (a sort of ‘balance of trade’), albeit that it does not illustrate the extent to which some UK fuel production is exported such that total imports can be much larger than net imports (especially for oil and gas).  Percentage net imports of coal, oil and gas were based on Energy Trends data.  Percentages net imports of bioenergy were deduced to have risen from around zero in 2000 to c.50% by 2000 and to have stayed at around level since (on basis that almost all of the biomass is imported, all of the biogas is produced in the UK, and the two technologies currently supply about equal shares of UK electricity).  Data about sources of nuclear fuel is not readily available, and percentage net imports were estimated to be 80%, on the basis that the UK has no uranium mining and after some deduction about the amount of reprocessed fuel that has been used.  Net electricity imports were treated as 100% imported energy (without the need to understand the fuels used for generation), and fuel-free renewables were treated as 100% UK-based.
  2. Analysis of future net imports of primary energy used UK gas production projections by the NSTA, gas and electricity demand scenarios from the CCC’s 7th Carbon Budget ‘Balanced Pathway’, and an electricity grid mix based on of one of two options: the CCC’s ‘Balanced Pathway’, and the LCCC’s expected start dates for new renewables that have CfDs (i.e. up to and including AR6).  Both options show a continuation of the trends from the past decade.
  3. https://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/uk-household-electricity-prices-rose-to-levels-higher-than-those-in-any-eu-country/
  4. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contracts-for-difference-and-energy-price-guarantee-funding-winter-2022-to-2023
  5. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/sustainable/news/2024/oct/uk-dangerously-underprepared-future-energy-crisis-reports-energy-crisis-commission
  6. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/01/energy-crisis-uk-households-worst-hit-in-western-europe-finds-imf
  7. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-out-plan-for-new-era-of-clean-electricity
  8. https://www.nstauthority.co.uk/data-and-insights/insights-and-analysis/production-and-expenditure-projections/