Published views put 2030 between £49 and £80 a megawatt hour in today’s money. The market has already priced 2028 at £68 to £75.
Power has averaged £103 a megawatt hour so far in 2026, against £76 in 2024 in today’s money. Vitreous has no long term price of its own yet. Until it does, this page carries every public long term view on one money basis, with the outturn and the forward curve on the same axis, so a reader can see who was right.
Table view of this chart, with sources
| Published view | Vintage | Basis as stated | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2030 | 2035 | 2040 | 2050 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DESNZ EEP reference | Feb 2026 | real 2024 | 81 | 68 | 64 | 63 | 68 | 83 | 115 |
| DESNZ EEP low fuel prices | Feb 2026 | real 2024 | 62 | 53 | 49 | 49 | 54 | 70 | 102 |
| DESNZ EEP high fuel prices | Feb 2026 | real 2024 | 112 | 93 | 84 | 80 | 82 | 95 | 112 |
| DESNZ EEP reference, previous edition | Dec 2024 | real 2023 | 74 | 67 | 64 | 49 | 63 | 76 | 85 |
| LCP Delta, accelerated build | Jun 2026 | real 2025, read from chart | 98 | 72 | 80 | 73 | 72 | ||
| Cornwall Insight benchmark curve | Apr 2024 | not stated, fiscal years, as printed | 82 | 83 | 79 | 72 | |||
| Forward curve, ICE via Catalyst Commercial | Sep 2026 | nominal, deflated here | 157 | 102 |
£ per MWh in 2026 money, converted with the OBR GDP deflator DESNZ publishes with its fuel price assumptions. Forward seasons sit in the calendar year holding most of the season. Aurora Energy Research publishes only a change, minus £19/MWh (20%) from 2024 to 2028, 17 June 2024, so it cannot be drawn.
Every battery project already at gate 2 adds up to 20.3 GW by 2030. NESO’s ten year path needs 21.7 GW.
The 1.4 GW between them has to come from projects not yet at gate 2. The blue line is what is contracted today. Everything above it is somebody’s plan.
Table view of this chart
| Year | Built, DUKES | Gate 2 book, cumulative | NESO Ten Year Outlook | FES 2025 low | FES 2025 high |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 0.1 | ||||
| 2018 | 0.6 | ||||
| 2019 | 0.9 | ||||
| 2020 | 1.1 | ||||
| 2021 | 1.5 | ||||
| 2022 | 2.3 | ||||
| 2023 | 3.8 | ||||
| 2024 | 5.2 | 6.6 | 6.6 | ||
| 2025 | 7.5 | 7.9 | 8.2 | 12.5 | |
| 2026 | 10.2 | 10.0 | 9.7 | 15.8 | |
| 2027 | 15.9 | 13.1 | 11.2 | 18.9 | |
| 2028 | 18.6 | 16.2 | 14.0 | 21.4 | |
| 2029 | 20.3 | 19.0 | 15.9 | 22.6 | |
| 2030 | 20.3 | 21.7 | 19.6 | 24.1 | |
| 2031 | 23.6 | 20.0 | 26.0 | ||
| 2032 | 26.0 | 20.4 | 27.1 | ||
| 2033 | 27.8 | 20.7 | 28.4 | ||
| 2034 | 29.3 | 21.8 | 29.4 | ||
| 2035 | 30.8 | 22.1 | 30.4 | ||
| 2036 | 31.3 | 23.0 | 31.0 |
Gigawatts. NESO figures exclude domestic and micro batteries.
Why there is no Vitreous line on the chart yet
A ten year price needs a model of the whole system: every gas plant’s cost, the wind and solar output hour by hour, the demand, the cables to the continent, the carbon price. The engine exists and passes its tests. The national inputs do not exist yet, there is no carbon price series in the building at all, and the government’s central gas assumption is already less than half of this month’s price. Until a historical year can be reproduced to a stated error, no Vitreous number goes on this page. What can go here is the published range, kept on one money basis and checked against the outturn as the years arrive, and the things the price depends on.
The gap between what gas was paid and what wind was paid is the battery’s business, and it was £19 a megawatt hour in 2024
A battery buys in the hours when wind sets the price and sells in the hours when gas does. Each technology’s capture price is the average price in the hours it was generating, weighted by how much it generated. Wind sold below the average in every year; gas sold above it in every year.
Table view of this chart
| Year | Wind | Solar | Nuclear | Gas | Average price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 177 | 205 | 203 | 226 | 205 |
| 2023 | 90 | 85 | 93 | 106 | 94 |
| 2024 | 66 | 65 | 72 | 85 | 73 |
£ per MWh, nominal.
Gas is at £65 a megawatt hour in September, above the government’s high case for 2026. The market expects it back near £28 by 2028.
Gas sets the British power price in most evening hours and will for years yet. The government’s three assumptions, published in February, put 2026 at £30 central and £51 high. The forward curve prices this winter as a crisis and the winter of 2028 as ordinary, which is roughly where the government’s central line sits.
Table view of this chart
| Year | DESNZ low | DESNZ central | DESNZ high |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 28 | 34 | 43 |
| 2026 | 19 | 30 | 51 |
| 2027 | 16 | 26 | 44 |
| 2028 | 15 | 26 | 44 |
| 2029 | 15 | 26 | 43 |
| 2030 | 15 | 25 | 43 |
| 2031 | 15 | 25 | 43 |
| 2032 | 14 | 25 | 42 |
| 2033 | 14 | 25 | 42 |
| 2034 | 14 | 25 | 41 |
| 2035 | 13 | 25 | 41 |
| 2036 | 13 | 24 | 40 |
| 2037 | 13 | 24 | 40 |
| 2038 | 12 | 24 | 39 |
| 2039 | 12 | 24 | 39 |
| 2040 | 11 | 24 | 39 |
£ per MWh in 2026 money. Forward curve on 11 September 2026, deflated: Winter 2026 £69, Summer 2027 £46, Winter 2027 £42, Summer 2028 £27, Winter 2028 £28.
What is on this page and what is not
On it: every public long term view of the price on one money basis, the outturn and the forward curve beside them, the fleet as built, the contracted book by year, NESO’s published pathways, the capture prices of the past three years, and the government’s gas assumptions against the gas market. Every number traces to a published file or to the Vitreous register, and the table under each chart carries the values and the sources.
Not on it: a Vitreous price forecast, a battery revenue forecast, or a probability that any project builds. The delivery risk score on the Atlas reads consent stage against years to the contracted date and is not a probability.
Published views: the latest vintage from each publisher is drawn and every vintage stays in the table. When a publisher issues a new view the old line moves to the table and the new one takes its place. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Supported by National Energy SO Open Data.