Britain’s electricity demand is on the rise after two decades of decline as electric vehicles, heat pumps and AI data centres drive a new era of electrification.
Electricity consumption has increased this year for the second year running, the first time that Britain has recorded two consecutive years of power demand growth since 2002 to 2003, according to analysis by Imperial College London for Drax Electric Insights.
Demand increased by 3 per cent in 2025, the provisional figures seen by The Times show, the fastest growth since 2001. Renewable electricity generation increased to provide the extra supplies, with a surge in solar power after the sunniest year on record.
“We have reached a turning point after 20 years of demand falling from appliances and lighting getting more efficient and the country de-industrialising,” Iain Staffell, associate professor of sustainable energy at Imperial College, said. “Electric vehicles, heat pumps, and the data centres powering AI are now pushing up electricity demand.”
The Climate Change Committee has said that if Britain is to hit its decarbonisation goals then electricity demand is likely to at least double by 2050. Such projections have informed government policies to significantly expand both power generation and the cabling network, costing tens of billions of pounds and adding to consumer energy bills.
Britain’s electricity demand peaked in 2005 at 347 terawatt-hours (TWh) and had been broadly declining since, with increases only recorded in isolated years: in 2010 as the economy rebounded after the financial crisis; in 2012 owing to a particularly cold winter; and in 2021 when demand rebounded from the pandemic.
However, this declining trend appears to have reversed with sustained growth in electricity demand now apparent, according to the data from Electric Insights, an independent analysis and data portal commissioned by Drax, the FTSE 250 power generator.
This year Britain used 273 TWh of electricity, according to the figures, which are based on actual data to December 28 and estimates for the final days of the year. That was up from 266 TWh in 2024 and from 262 TWh in 2023.
Staffell, lead author of Electric Insights, said rising demand this year reflected installations of heat pumps growing by 20 per cent and electric vehicle sales growing by 28 per cent. “We are really embracing electric vehicles; one in three cars sold this year was electric,” he said.
Artificial intelligence, reliant on power-hungry data centres, is also a growing source of electricity demand. Staffell said that demand from data centres was estimated to have roughly doubled since 2020 and was now thought to account for 3 to 4 per cent of Britain’s electricity consumption. This was forecast to grow to more than 10 per cent of demand over the next ten years, he said.
The analysis finds that the increased demand this year was met by renewables, including a 35 per cent surge in solar power output thanks to the sunny weather and new solar farms coming online, although solar still accounted for only 7 per cent of the total electricity mix.
“Our power system got cleaner at the same time as growing, as renewables met all the extra demand placed on the grid,” Staffell said. Wind provided the biggest share of supplies at 31 per cent for the second year running, followed by gas on 28 per cent. Nuclear declined to just 12 per cent of the mix, its lowest level since 1980, after prolonged outages for maintenance, refuelling and unplanned shutdowns.
Carbon emissions from electricity production fell to their lowest level since 1938 following the cessation of coal-fired power generation in 2024.
However, wholesale electricity prices rose by 12 per cent, reflecting higher gas prices and a significant rise in carbon costs.