UK wholesale electricity price, live
The latest half-hourly market price is £215.36 per MWh, about 21.5p per kWh before any costs are added.
Live data, updated .
Wholesale electricity price
£ per MWh, half-hourly market price
the numbers
market price is what traders paid for power in that half hour. balancing cost is what it took to keep supply and demand level, which the trade calls the imbalance price
More on wholesale prices →Grid stress: how much strain
0 calm, 100 strained
- Spare margin (40%)10.9 GW spare, after breakdowns0
- Price (30%)£215/MWh54
- Frequency (20%)153 mHz off 50, five-minute average69
- Import reliance (10%)balanced0
each bar is how hard that factor is pushing, 0 to 100
How the stress score works →Wholesale, retail and the price cap
Wholesale power is traded in half-hour blocks. Elexon's market index is a volume-weighted average of short-term trades for each half-hour, a good live read of what electricity costs. Household prices add network charges, policy costs, the supplier's own costs and VAT, which is why a wholesale price of 10p per kWh can become a retail price of around 25p.
Ofgem's price cap sets the most a supplier can charge per kWh on a standard variable tariff, reset every three months from wholesale costs months earlier. Smart tariffs pass today's wholesale prices on much faster: see Agile prices today and Tracker prices today.
Common questions
What is the wholesale price of electricity in the UK today?
This page shows the latest half-hourly market index price from Elexon, in pounds per megawatt-hour. Divide by 10 to get pence per kWh: £100/MWh is 10p/kWh, before network costs, levies, the supplier's costs and VAT are added.
How does the wholesale price relate to my bill?
On a standard or fixed tariff, wholesale prices feed into your bill slowly, through the quarterly price cap or your supplier's hedging. On tariffs like Octopus Agile and Tracker they feed through the next day: Agile changes every half-hour and Tracker once a day.
What are system prices?
System prices are what generators and suppliers pay or receive when they produce or use more or less than they contracted for in a half-hour. They settle the balancing of the grid and can be far more volatile than the market index.
Why is electricity expensive in the evening?
Between 4pm and 7pm demand peaks while solar fades, so the most expensive power stations, usually gas, are needed to keep up. The price of the last unit needed sets the price for that half-hour.