Record wind and solar saved UK from £1bn of gas imports in March 2026

A banner month for clean power

It has been reported that wind and solar together produced a record 11 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity across Great Britain in March 2026 — a 28% jump year‑on‑year. Wind alone was up 38% for the month, and solar nearly matched last spring’s unusually sunny output. A new monthly high. Quietly impressive. Who expected renewables to show up like this?

Cash, tankers and a quieter gas market

That extra clean generation meant the UK avoided around 21TWh of gas demand — roughly the equivalent of 18 fully loaded LNG tankers — which would have cost about £1bn at current prices, Carbon Brief’s analysis estimates. The calculation uses gas priced at about 130p per therm (roughly £44/MWh), with recent prices ranging between 120–170p per therm amid supply shocks linked to the Iran war. Gas-fired electricity output fell 25% year‑on‑year in March to its lowest level ever recorded for the month, and gas set the wholesale price around 25% less often than it did in March 2022.

A small victory with bigger questions attached

This feels like more than a single bright month. It’s a reminder that home-grown wind and solar can blunt the bite of global fossil‑fuel shocks. But can it scale reliably through winter peaks and prolonged geopolitical crises? The economics are tilting in favour of renewables — new onshore wind and solar now stack up far cheaper than new gas plants — yet grid flexibility, storage and policy still matter. For households and policymakers, March 2026 was a welcome dose of good news. For traders? A headache. For the climate? At least a tiny sigh of relief.

Sources: carbonbrief.org, Hacker News