WhenToPlugIn 4+

The app shows you the live carbon intensity forecast in Great Britain, letting you know when the electricity in your home will be cleanest over the next 48 hours to help you plan your electricity usage. 

The app also offers a full breakdown of the energy sources powering the electricity in your region, shows you about the interconnectors that connect us to the electricity systems of neighbouring countries, and provides live updates as new clean energy records are broken too!

It is powered by carbonintensity.org.uk, the carbon intensity forecasting tool built by National Grid ESO, The Environmental Defense Fund Europe, The University of Oxford and WWF, which also powers National Grid’s Green Light Signal bulb. It also draws from electricitymap.org to pull in interconnector information.

Helping to get Great Britain to net zero
Increasingly, we’re getting more and more of our electricity from renewable sources, which is great news for Great Britain and the planet. But when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, we rely more on fossil fuels to generate electricity.
National Grid wants to get Great Britain to net zero faster, so we created this app to show you in real time when the electricity coming into your home is generated by zero carbon sources such as wind, solar and nuclear. Because the cleaner the energy, the lower the carbon intensity, which is better for the environment.

What is carbon intensity?
The carbon intensity of electricity is a measure of how much carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are produced per kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity consumed. Fossil fuels have a high carbon intensity as they produce more CO2. Renewables such as wind or solar produce no emissions, so their carbon intensity is zero.

Use the app often to help guide your energy usage. When your region is being powered by cleaner energy, if you want to charge you electric vehicle or put on a hot wash you can now feel positive that your electricity is powered by clean energy.

About National Grid
National Grid is the company that owns and maintains the major infrastructure that transports gas and electricity across Great Britain. 

You can think of this major infrastructure as the motorways of pipelines and cables (on pylons and underground) that transmit gas and electricity from where it is imported or generated to the local distribution networks.