The Grid in Focus
A LinkedIn series · Updated weekly

Energy networks data,
decoded.

Britain's energy system publishes a colossal amount of data. Most of it sits in PDFs, CSVs, and dashboards that assume you already know what you're looking for. This series turns that raw output into something you can read in two minutes.

— What this is

One question. One dataset. One chart that earns its place. Every dashboard pulls live from the source — NESO, ENA, Ofgem, the DNOs — so the numbers move when the grid does.

Built for the curious non-specialist as much as the practitioner.

i.
Live, not static
Every dashboard fetches data on page load where possible. No screenshots, no stale numbers, no "as of" footnotes that age badly.
ii.
Source over speculation
Public data only — NESO Data Portal, Ofgem, ENA Open Networks and more. Methodology stated, links provided.
iii.
One insight per post
No dashboards-of-dashboards. Each post answers a single question with the visual that best earns its space.

The series so far

4 planned · 1 live

Where did Britain's electricity actually come from this month?

Thirty days of generation mix data. How much of the month was wind-driven, when gas had to step in, and how the carbon intensity curve actually looks day to day.

NESO Carbon Intensity API · daily refresh

£1.7 billion to turn wind farms off.

Constraint payments are now bigger than the entire balancing budget was in 2018. Seven years of cost data, what's actually driving the bill, and where it's heading by 2030.

NESO Annual Balancing Costs Report

A 722 GW queue, reshaped to 283 GW.

The largest connections clear-out Britain has ever done. The pre-reform queue, the post-reform pipeline, the technology mix, and how it all maps to the Clean Power 2030 capacity range.

NESO Connections Reform Results

When does Britain use the most electricity?

A heatmap of demand by hour-of-day and day-of-week across a year. Where the duck curve is forming, and where the flexibility opportunities are hiding.

NESO Historic Demand · half-hourly

What the FES tells us about 2030.

Future Energy Scenarios capacity build-out trajectories. The gap between current build rates and the trajectories the grid actually needs.

NESO Future Energy Scenarios
?

What would you like to see next?

DNO heatmaps. Queue Data. Capacity Market clearing. Demand Flexibility Service results. If there's a question you keep wishing someone had a chart for — say so.

DM on LinkedIn
— About the series

Why I'm doing this.

I work in the UK energy sector and spend a lot of my time helping colleagues and clients navigate datasets. Whilst that is confidential, there is a wealth of data in the public domain. This series will bring that publicly available data to life, so you don't have to. Built in the open, designed to be readable in the time it takes to drink half a coffee.

Each post lands on LinkedIn first. The full interactive dashboards live here.