UK Carbon Intensity Scraper

UK Carbon Intensity Scraper pulls structured data from National Grid Carbon Intensity API and returns it as a clean dataset you can export as JSON, CSV or Excel. It pulls National Grid's half-hourly UK carbon intensity readings for the current day - forecast, actual and index - so you can schedule energy use, feed a dashboard or track the grid's progress.

No API key, no login. Click Start and it works with the prefilled input.

What does UK Carbon Intensity Scraper do?

It queries National Grid Carbon Intensity API and returns one row per record, with only the fields that matter. Runs on the Apify platform, so you get an API endpoint, scheduling, monitoring and integrations (Zapier, Make, Google Sheets, webhooks) without maintaining any infrastructure.

Why use it?

• National Grid Carbon Intensity API data without the plumbing: no proxy setup, no pagination code, no scraping maintenance.
• Schedule it to monitor changes daily or weekly and trigger alerts on new records.
• Feed it straight into a spreadsheet, database, or an AI agent via the Apify API or MCP server.
• Runs in seconds and returns a typed dataset that is ready for analysis.

How to use it

1. Click Try for free / Start.
2. Leave the default input to see a sample run, or type your own values (see Input below).
3. Press Start and wait a few seconds.
4. Open the Output tab and download as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
maxResults	integer	24	Maximum number of half-hourly carbon intensity readings to return (today has up to 48).

Example input:

{
  "maxResults": 5
}

Output

One item per record. Sample:

{
  "period_from": "2026-09-27T05:30Z",
  "period_to": "2026-09-27T06:00Z",
  "forecast_gco2_kwh": 99,
  "actual_gco2_kwh": 91,
  "intensity_index": "moderate"
}

You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

Data fields

Field	Type	Meaning
period_from	string	Period From
period_to	string	Period To
forecast_gco2_kwh	integer	Forecast Intensity (gCO2/kWh)
actual_gco2_kwh	integer	Actual Intensity (gCO2/kWh)
intensity_index	string	Intensity Index

How much does it cost to run?

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: you pay per result item pushed to the dataset, and nothing for an empty run. Each run is a few seconds of compute, so typical costs are fractions of a cent per run, and the Apify free tier covers plenty of testing.

Tips and advanced options

• Raise maxResults for a bigger pull; the Actor pages through the source for you.
• Schedule it (e.g. every morning) and combine with a webhook to get only the new records.
• Add the Actor to an AI agent through the Apify MCP server for natural-language queries.

FAQ, disclaimers and support

• Is this legal? It uses publicly available data from National Grid Carbon Intensity API. You are responsible for how you use the data and for complying with the source's terms.
• It returned nothing? The API serves readings for the current day only. If the day has just started, retry a little later.
• Something broken? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab. Data sources change and get fixed quickly.
• Need a custom variant (extra fields, a different source, a scheduled report)? Get in touch through the Issues tab.