Britain’s energy system operator has predicted that this year’s Christmas Day could be the greenest yet.
If the weather remains mild and windy for the rest of December, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) has said it could record the lowest carbon intensity – the measure of how much carbon dioxide is released to produce electricity – recorded on the network for 25 December.
Craig Dyke, a director at Neso, said the electricity grid had run at a record peak of 97.7% zero carbon earlier this year, on 1 April.
“This Christmas, there’s the possibility we’ll see the lowest ever carbon intensity on the network on the big day itself,” he said.
The company responsible for keeping the lights on, which was bought by the government from National Grid last year, said the greenest Christmas Day so far was in 2023, when it recorded a carbon intensity of 30m grams of carbon dioxide. That was five times less than the emissions in 2018.
Last year, more than 40% of electricity generation on Christmas Day came from renewables. It stood at 1.7% in 2009. Earlier this month, wind turbines generated enough electricity “to light up nearly 3bn strings of 100-bulb LED fairy lights” at one point.
Neso said an extra 2GW of wind and 3GW of solar power came on to the network in 2025, taking Britain’s total renewables capacity to an historic high of 53GW. Greater capacity, combined with lower than average energy demand for the time of year, should mean emissions are lower on the 25 December.
While power may be greener this Christmas, heightened consumption at the end of the year can have a damaging impact on the environment. UK households have already thrown away an estimated 168m light-up Christmas items and other “fast tech” gifts over the past year, according to research by Material Focus.
Meanwhile, separate research found that 1.1bn of all types of electric products and 450m batteries are thrown away irresponsibly each year.
A greener Christmas this year comes as the government tries to transition away from fossil fuels to net zero by 2050. Analysis by Neso earlier this year found the UK already spends about 10% of its gross domestic product on investments related to net zero, and forecast that these costs would climb over the coming years and remain higher than they are today until the 2030s.
It forecast that costs could peak at about £460bn by 2029 in its most ambitious scenario, before beginning to decline to about 5% of GDP by 2050 or roughly £220bn a year. In the “falling behind” scenario, which is based in a future in which Britain misses its net zero target and ignores the cost of climate damage, the total costs are about £350bn lower.