Why the way we power our homes and gardens will be changing

Ground-breaking initiatives like The Great Grid Upgrade from National Grid will transform our energy system in the charge towards net zero

One of life’s simplest joys is stepping back and admiring the results of your hard work in the garden. After all, it’s often a labour of love, particularly when you have to contend with obstacles like increasingly extreme winter weather. But we can use nature’s raw power to our advantage in the fight against climate change.

As a nation, we want to be able to celebrate our all-important outdoor spaces and keep horticultural traditions going for generations to come. That's why we need to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy and harness the power of nature through wind and solar energy.

To make this happen, National Grid is delivering The Great Grid Upgrade – the largest overhaul of the UK’s electricity grid in generations. As a result, our energy is getting cleaner and, in the long-term, will be cheaper, too.

The Great Grid Upgrade

Whether it’s power tools, outdoor lighting or simply the running of our homes, energy threads through everything we do. And as the country reduces its reliance on fossil fuels, the way we power our day-to-day lives and favourite activities, such as gardening, is changing. To enable this, our electricity grid needs to evolve. Over the next seven years, the UK will need to build five times more electricity transmission infrastructure than it has in the last 30 years.

This colossal project is called The Great Grid Upgrade and will transport renewable energy from where it’s generated to where it’s needed in our homes and businesses. And the good news is, the UK already has one of the largest offshore wind capacities in the world – enough to power around 13 million homes. Recent years have also seen record-breaking amounts of renewable energy generated, with 2023 being the cleanest year on record with 36% of our energy came from wind, solar and hydro power. In December, we hit a new record in the UK for wind generation, which accounted for 56% of electricity generation on a single day.

With electricity demand expected to double by 2050, The Great Grid Upgrade is vital in helping the UK to switch to a clean, secure, and reliable energy future. The upgrade of the electricity grid will enable it to carry more clean energy, which is essential for us to achieve net zero, and to meet the government’s ambition for 50GW of wind power in our energy system by 2030 as well.

Indeed, connecting 50GW of offshore wind could save the equivalent carbon emissions of taking 5.2 million petrol or diesel cars off the road or, 509 million trees capturing and storing carbon every year.

Green shoots

So what does all that mean for you? Well for a start, power from wind turbines in the North Sea could end up charging your strimmer, helping you to keep on doing the things you love, while reducing your carbon footprint in the process. What’s more, it could also help bring down your electricity bills in the future, with power from the wind and sun expected to be much cheaper than imported gas. Producing more of our own clean energy will also make the UK more self-sufficient and boost our energy security.

Not only that, but the investment necessary to realise the full extent of the project could support up to 130,000 jobs as part of the net zero energy workforce and add up to £11bn to Great Britain’s economy by 2050*.

Homegrown energy, fairer prices, cleaner electricity — the benefits of The Great Grid Upgrade are clear. Best of all, simple pleasures like mowing the lawn and trimming your hedges until they’re just right will feel all the more rewarding in future, as you’ll be safe in the knowledge that they’re fuelled by renewable energy sources.

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