{"id":4484,"date":"2026-04-02T14:59:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T14:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/4484\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T14:59:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T14:59:05","slug":"analysis-record-wind-and-solar-saved-uk-from-gas-imports-worth-1bn-in-march-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/4484\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: Record wind and solar saved UK from gas imports worth \u00a31bn in March 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The UK avoided the need for gas imports worth \u00a31bn in March 2026 thanks to record electricity generation from wind and solar, reveals Carbon Brief analysis.<\/p>\n<p>Wind generation hit a new record for the month of March on the island of Great Britain, up 38% year-on-year, while solar nearly matched the output of last year\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carbonbrief.org\/analysis-uks-solar-power-surges-42-after-sunniest-spring-on-record\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">exceptionally sunny<\/a> spring.<\/p>\n<p>Together, wind and solar generated 11 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity in March 2026, up a combined 28% and setting a new record for the month, as shown in the figure below.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1560\" height=\"892\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Record_wind_and_solar_saved_UK_from_gas_imports_worth_1bn_in_March_2026-2.png\" alt=\"Chart showing that record wind and solar saved UK from gas imports worth \u00a31bn in March 2026\" class=\"wp-image-61960\"  \/>Monthly generation from wind and solar in terawatt hours on the island of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), which has a separate electricity system from the island of Ireland, which includes Northern Ireland. Source: National Energy System Operator (NESO) and Carbon Brief analysis.<\/p>\n<p>This record wind and solar output avoided the need to import 21TWh of gas \u2013\u00a0roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carbonbrief.org\/analysis-why-clean-energy-will-cut-uk-gas-imports-by-more-than-north-sea-drilling\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">18 fully loaded tankers<\/a> of liquified natural gas (LNG)\u00a0\u2013 which would have cost around \u00a31bn at current high prices due to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carbonbrief.org\/qa-what-does-the-iran-war-mean-for-the-energy-transition-and-climate-action\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Iran war<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>(This is based on gas costing 130p per therm, or \u00a344 per megawatt hour, compared with the <a href=\"https:\/\/tradingeconomics.com\/commodity\/uk-natural-gas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">range of 120-170p<\/a> per therm seen over the past month.)<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, the record output from wind and solar saw electricity generation from gas falling 25% year-on-year in March 2026 to the lowest level ever recorded for the month.<\/p>\n<p>This meant that gas was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carbonbrief.org\/qa-why-does-gas-set-the-price-of-electricity-and-is-there-an-alternative\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">setting the price<\/a> of electricity roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/posts\/edcporter_how-often-did-gas-set-the-price-for-march-activity-7445031147643928576-0v-o?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;rcm=ACoAAAL7qHQBAyJW0oiRL6RFnZ3OBIpxayxUBHQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">25% less often<\/a> in March 2026 than in the same month in 2022, when fossil-fuel prices spiked after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carbonbrief.org\/qa-what-does-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-mean-for-energy-and-climate-change\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK avoided the need for gas imports worth \u00a31bn in March 2026 thanks to record electricity generation&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[234,2597,672,2598,2599,2600,5,2601,2602,6,2603,2604,2605],"class_list":{"0":"post-4484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-energy","9":"tag-energy-policy","10":"tag-renewable-energy","11":"tag-renewables","12":"tag-solar","13":"tag-solar-energy","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-uk-energy","16":"tag-uk-energy-policy","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-wind","19":"tag-wind-and-solar","20":"tag-wind-energy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116335710287626452","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}