Waiting for the latest published NESO records.
THE COST OF OPERATING BRITAIN'S GRID
We pay to generate electricity.
What do we pay to manage it?
See what Britain spends keeping electricity flowing safely, including why power stations are sometimes paid to change their output. We translate the numbers into a household-sized comparison.
NESO source dataNo estimates dressed as factsIndependent analysis
Published periods only; coverage shown below.
Included in total balancing costs, not an extra charge.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR A HOUSEHOLD?
The cost behind the bill.
—estimated equivalent for a typical home in the reported week
—estimated equivalent for a typical home over the last 365 days
A rolling year can only be calculated from available complete NESO reporting days.
This is not an amount newly added to your bill. It's an illustrative share of the period's reported balancing expenditure, allocated by electricity consumption. Actual BSUoS tariffs are set separately and recovered via suppliers.
Household consumption2,500 kWh/year
Reference GB electricity consumption—
Cost per electricity unit this week—
Typical household use: Ofgem, July 2026. Reference GB annual consumption is a documented modelling assumption, not a live demand measurement. Equivalent shown only for published reporting days; the 365-day figure shows coverage and is not extrapolated to fill gaps.
WHERE THE MONEY GOES
What's included in balancing?
These are NESO's categories within the total — not additional costs to add on.
Waiting for official figures…
Dataset update pending
NOT ALL BALANCING IS CURTAILMENT
Why generators are asked to turn down.
Electricity can be available but unable to reach consumers because of transmission limits. NESO may reduce generation on one side of a bottleneck and increase it elsewhere. Other balancing actions maintain frequency, voltage and system security.
We show total balancing expenditure separately from network constraints. The narrower cost of paying wind farms to reduce output cannot be derived reliably from those totals alone. We won't label all constraint expenditure as wind curtailment.
PUBLISHED DAY-BY-DAY
Recent costs
When today's record hasn't been published, the latest available date remains visible — not an invented live reading.
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