UK Electricity Generation and Market Prices Scraper

Tired of manually checking UK power generation mixes, system prices, and demand reports? This actor handles the heavy lifting for you. It automatically pulls detailed electricity generation outturns, settlement prices, and system demand data directly into a clean, ready-to-use dataset. You can easily schedule it to run automatically on Apify and export everything straight to JSON, CSV, or Excel.

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What Data Does This Actor Extract?

Every saved row corresponds to a specific settlement period. Depending on the mode you choose, the output structures your data cleanly:

• Generation Summary: Captures fuel-by-fuel breakdowns (such as CCGT, biomass, wind, and more) along with timestamps.
• System Prices: Pulls buy and sell prices, net imbalance volumes, and price derivation codes for a given settlement date.
• Demand Outturn: Gathers initial demand and transmission system demand numbers over a chosen time window.

Example Output

{
  "startTime": "2026-10-10T21:30:00Z",
  "settlementPeriod": 46,
  "data": [
    {"fuelType": "BIOMASS", "generation": 971},
    {"fuelType": "CCGT", "generation": 2743}
  ],
  "scrapeMode": "generation_summary",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-12T00:00:00+00:00"
}

Field Reference

Field	Type	Description
startTime	string	Period start timestamp
settlementPeriod	integer	Settlement period number
settlementDate	string	Settlement date for price and demand rows
data	array	Fuel mix breakdown for generation summary mode
scrapeMode	string	Mode used (generation_summary, system_prices, or demand)
systemSellPrice	number	System sell price
systemBuyPrice	number	System buy price
netImbalanceVolume	number	Net imbalance volume
priceDerivationCode	string	Indicator for how the price was derived
initialDemandOutturn	integer	Initial demand outturn in MW
initialTransmissionSystemDemandOutturn	integer	Initial transmission system demand outturn in MW
publishTime	string	Timestamp when demand figures were published
scrapedAt	string	UTC timestamp when the row was saved
error	string	Populated only when a row represents a failed request

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Use Cases

• Half-Hour Fuel Mix Tracking: Quickly pull and compare generation shares across different fuel types without manually wrangling messy tables.
• Imbalance Price Analysis: Export system buy and sell prices for a single day or walk through a date range effortlessly.
• Demand Monitoring: Grab initial demand outturns and transmission numbers over specific windows.
• Automated Daily Updates: Set up a scheduled morning run to capture fresh updates and build historical trends over time.
• Spreadsheet Workflow: Download your dataset as a CSV or Excel spreadsheet for offline modeling and reports.

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Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	generation_summary	The data feed to collect (generation_summary, system_prices, or demand).
dataset	string	empty	Optional alias for mode. If both are provided, mode takes precedence.
dateFrom	string	empty	First settlement date (YYYY-MM-DD).
dateTo	string	empty	Last settlement date (inclusive, YYYY-MM-DD).
maxItems	integer	100	Maximum row cap for the run (hard max is 1000).
timeoutSecs	integer	300	Maximum runtime in seconds before stopping new requests.
requestTimeoutSecs	integer	30	Per-request timeout in seconds.

Note on blank dates: Leaving date fields empty will default to the most recent published records for generation summaries, or yesterday's date for system prices and demand modes.

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How Runs Work

Generation summaries pull the latest available half-hour blocks in one go. System prices fetch data day by day, while demand handles date windows seamlessly. Requests run sequentially with a brief pause between them to keep things running smoothly.

Failed requests are handled gracefully, turning into clean error rows rather than crashing your entire pipeline. Duplicate settlement periods are automatically filtered out, and the run stops as soon as it hits either your maxItems cap or the timeoutSecs limit.

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FAQ

• Can I export to CSV, JSON, or Excel? Yes, you can download your final dataset directly from Apify in your preferred format.
• What happens if a date is invalid? The actor will capture a clean error row describing the issue rather than crashing the run. The same behavior applies if a response returns an unexpected server status.
• How many rows can a single run collect? The default limit is 100 items, and it can scale up to 1,000 items per run.
• Can it fetch multiple days of system prices? Absolutely. Just specify your dateFrom and dateTo range and ensure maxItems is high enough to cover the span.

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Trademark Notice

UK Electricity Market and related names, logos, and trademarks belong to their respective owners. Their use in this documentation is solely to identify the source of the data and does not imply affiliation, sponsorship, endorsement, or partnership.

Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or otherwise officially associated with UK Electricity Market or its owners. All data is collected from publicly available sources. Users are responsible for complying with the source's terms of use, rate limits, and attribution or licensing requirements.

Is Web Scraping Legal?

This Actor only collects publicly available data without interfering with secure environments or bypassing access controls. However, how you use the collected data matters:

• Copyright: Some content may be protected by copyright. Do not republish full copyrighted content without permission.
• Terms of Use: Respect the source's terms, stated rate limits, and any attribution or non-commercial-use requirements.
• Legal Advice: This is general information, not legal advice. If you're unsure about specific use cases, consult a qualified lawyer.