If you click here, you can see how the UK’s electricity is being generated at this moment. Data are updated every 5 minutes, with a <5 minutes lag in getting the data on line. It’s impressive stuff from UK Energy Watch.
The scope for school use of this site is huge, as there is a constant updating of data which allows a comparison of different weather patterns, seasonal changes, and day / night differences. As this post is being written (~1830 on a blustery, sunny day), demand / generation is ~35GW.
13.3 come from gas, 7.3 from nuclear, 7 from coal, 2.3 from wind, 3 from continental Europe through two of our three interconnectors (mostly French nuclear), 0.7 from Hydro, and 1 from “other” which is mostly renewables of one sort or another: solar, biomass, … .
All this will be very different by 2300, and again by 1200 tomorrow. And soon it will be possible for schools to register at UK Energy Watch and automatically monitor their own generation data.