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Posted 16 hours ago | 1 minute read

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NESO expects “strongest winter electricity margins in six years”

The National Energy System Operator (NESO) has set out its operational margin expectations for the 2025-26 Winter period, which runs from 31 October 2025 to 31 March 2026.

In its 2025 Winter Outlook, published on 9 October, NESO said it anticipates electricity margins of 6.1GW; the highest since 2019-20 and equivalent to 10% of average peak demand, with an associated loss of load expectation (LOLE) below 0.1 hours. This is an increase from the 5.2 GW (8.8% of peak demand) published in last year’s Winter Outlook and is comparable to the 6.6 GW (10.9 %) detailed in the Early View of Winter.

This increase has been driven by the growth in supply from battery storage, at both the national transmission and regional distribution network levels, alongside an increase in the availability of electricity generation from gas, and the commissioning of the Greenlink electricity interconnector.

But NESO warned that there may still be some tight days requiring use of the operational tools it has available including use of Capacity Market Notices (which secured 7.9 GW of capacity for delivery in winter 2025-26) and Electricity Market Notices. 

Source: NESO

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