Introducing our Carbon Intensity app

In this blog our Energy Intelligence Manager James Kelloway introduces our Carbon Intensity app, a free resource aimed at empowering people to make more conscious decisions about how they consume energy.

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges that humans have ever faced.

We’re the first generation to fully understand the impact that we’ve had on our climate and the last that can do something about it.

The electricity industry has a major part to play in solving the climate crisis -  if we can reduce the amount of carbon in our electricity system, we’ll help the UK meet its wider zero carbon targets and help stem climate change.

We’ve made tremendous progress by reducing the carbon intensity – the level of carbon emitted for each unit of energy generated – by 65.8% between 2013 to 2020.

But there is still more to do.

As Great Britain’s Electricity System Operator, we have our own zero carbon ambitious targets and we are working hard to build a greener electricity system of the future.

We are also empowering people to make more conscious decisions about how they consume energy by making our data easily available.

We have launched a carbon intensity app  - available for free on Google Play Store and The App Store - to show people the greenest times of day to use electricity and help them see real time information on how our electricity is being produced.

What is carbon intensity?

If you can be flexible when you use your electricity, you can make more environmentally friendly choices and, if like me you are on a smart meter tariff with your energy supplier, you can save some money too.

The app began life as a website, built in partnership with the WWF, Environmental Defense Fund Europe and the University of Oxford department of Computer Science and has been receiving 10 million plus hits a month.

Its success led the ESO to launch an app version, offering a whole range of interesting insights on the go – watch this short video I filmed to learn more and download our app to get more switched on about plugging in!

For all National Grid ESO data, visit our data portal.