UK Power

This page serves to document some information I found regarding the UK power grid and the data available in relation to it.

The national grid itself provides some real-time (ish; delayed by 2 minutes) data, but there is additional data provided by other parties.

• Elexon - I have no idea who they are, but they provide per-megawatt usage of individual power sources.

There are a number of data sources available from Elexon's “API”, in varying formats. The data permitted to be automatically downloaded is listed at https://www.elexonportal.co.uk/SCRIPTING

XML document of the following structure:

• GENERATION_BY_FUEL_TYPE_TABLE
  • INST
    • FUEL
      • Properties
        • TYPE - String, fuel type code
        • IC - Boolean (Y=True, N=False), indicates if the fuel source is an interconnect
        • VAL - Integer, usage in megawatts
        • PCT - Float, percentage of total usage
    • Properties
      • AT - DateTime
      • TOTAL - Integer, total usage in megawatts
  • HH
    • FUEL
      • As defined in 'INST'
    • Properties
      • SD - Unknown
      • SP - Unknown
      • AT - Timestamp range
      • TOTAL - Integer, megawatts
  • LAST24H
    • FUEL
      • As defined in 'INST'
    • Properties
      • FROM_SD - Unknown
      • FROM_SP - Unknown
      • AT - Timestamp range
      • TOTAL - Integer, total megawatts used during the reporting period
  • LAST_UPDATED
    • Properties
      • AT - DateTime

CSV format, list of settlements, unknown utility.

CSV format, list of settlements with buy and sell prices and net imbalance volumes

CSV format with extraneous header, not fully sure but it seems like a list of companies who buy and sell energy

CSV format with extraneous header, list of companies that trade energy

CSV format, unknown content lol

Excel document, unknown content

Elexon also provide data through a more formal API, as well as through message queueing systems including AMQP, but I haven't explored that and don't have the energy to.