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The biggest power stations in the UK

The UK’s biggest power stations range from gas and biomass plants to offshore wind farms, nuclear stations and pumped storage built inside a mountain.

This guide ranks the largest sites using the government’s latest official data. It also explains how power stations are measured, which is the biggest of each type, and why large stations still play a key role in keeping the lights on.

What is the biggest power station in the UK?

The biggest power station in the UK is the Drax Power Station, near Selby in North Yorkshire, with 2.6GW of generating capacity across four biomass units.

You’ll often see Drax listed at around 3.9GW, but that older figure includes coal capacity that was retired in 2021. However, even the reduced capacity of 2.6GW still makes it the biggest in the UK.

How are power stations ranked?

There are several ways of ranking the size of power stations. Here are the four different factors we’ve considered in our rankings.

Installed capacity

Installed capacity is the most power a station can produce at any one moment, measured in gigawatts (GW). It’s the most common way to rank power stations because it’s a fixed figure that doesn’t change with the weather or demand.

Capacity figures can still differ between sources. Some quote gross capacity, while others give net capacity, which is what’s left after the station’s own power use is deducted.

Annual generation

Annual generation is how much electrical energy a station actually produces in a year, measured in gigawatt hours (GWh) or terawatt hours (TWh). Capacity and generation are linked by the load factor, which shows the proportion of potential generation that is realised in the year.

Load factors vary widely by technology. In 2025, nuclear stations had the highest load factor at 64% whereas offshore wind farms have only 36%. Wind farms have lower load factors because they only output full power on windy days.

Operational status

A station’s status decides whether it belongs in a ranking at all. The main categories are:

Operational: The station is generating and connected to the grid.
Under construction or commissioning: The station is being built, or some units are generating while the rest are finished. Large projects can take years to reach full capacity.
Mothballed: The station has stopped generating but hasn’t been dismantled, so it could return to service.
Closed: The station has been decommissioned and no longer counts towards UK capacity.

The table on this page shows each station’s status, so you can see which ones are generating now.

Fuel type

Stations are also ranked within their own technology, because a gas station, a nuclear plant and a wind farm do very different jobs on the grid. A ranking by fuel type shows the biggest of each kind, so you can see each one alongside its peers rather than lumping very different technologies together.

The biggest power stations in the UK

The table below ranks the UK’s biggest power stations by installed capacity, using the government’s latest official list of stations that were operating at the end of May 2026.

Gas accounts for 10 of the 16 sites, with biomass, pumped storage, offshore wind and nuclear making up the rest.

Rank	Power station	Technology	Capacity (MW)	Location	Status
1	Drax biomass power station	Biomass	2,580	Selby, North Yorkshire	Operational
2	Pembroke	Gas	2,325	Pembrokeshire, Wales	Operational
3	Staythorpe C	Gas	1,828	Newark, Nottinghamshire	Operational
4	Dinorwig	Pumped storage	1,800	Gwynedd, Wales	Operational
5	Didcot B	Gas	1,490	Oxfordshire	Operational
6	Grain	Gas	1,404	Isle of Grain, Kent	Operational
7	South Humber Bank	Gas	1,400	Stallingborough, Lincolnshire	Operational
8	Hornsea 2	Offshore wind	1,386	North Sea, off the Yorkshire coast	Operational
9	Connah’s Quay	Gas	1,380	Flintshire, Wales	Operational
10	West Burton B	Gas	1,332	Nottinghamshire	Operational
11	VPI Immingham	Gas	1,252	Immingham, Lincolnshire	Operational
12	Heysham 2	Nuclear	1,240	Lancashire	Operational until March 2030
13	Hornsea 1	Offshore wind	1,218	North Sea, off the Yorkshire coast	Operational
14	Seabank	Gas	1,205	Bristol	Operational
15 =	Torness	Nuclear	1,200	East Lothian, Scotland	Operational until March 2030
15 =	Saltend	Gas	1,200	Hull, East Yorkshire	Operational

Source: Gov.uk – Power stations in the United Kingdom, May 2026 (DUKES 5.11)

The largest power stations by fuel type

Below we’ve ranked the biggest power station for each of the major types of electricity generation used on the UK grid.

Largest gas power station

Pembroke in Pembrokeshire is the largest gas power station in the UK, with 2,325MW of installed capacity. It’s a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant run by RWE and was commissioned in 2012.

Staythorpe C in Nottinghamshire is next at 1,828MW, and you can see how both compare with the rest of the UK’s gas power stations in our full list.

Largest nuclear power station

Heysham 2 in Lancashire is the UK’s largest operating nuclear power station at 1,240MW, just ahead of Torness at 1,200MW and Sizewell B at 1,198MW.

That will change once Hinkley Point C comes online. It’s a 3.2GW station, with EDF planning for Unit 1 to be operational in 2030.

The UK’s nuclear fleet currently has only five operating power plants.

Largest biomass power station

Drax is the UK’s largest biomass power station by a wide margin, with 2,580MW across its four converted units. The next biggest is Lynemouth in Northumberland at 420MW, a former coal station that switched to biomass in 2018.

The Drax Power station is part of the Drax Energy group.

Largest hydro power station

Conventional hydro stations are much smaller than other large power stations. The biggest is Sloy on the banks of Loch Lomond, at 152.5MW, which opened in 1950.

The UK’s geography makes large-scale hydroelectric power plants, like the 22,500 MW Three Gorges Dam in China, impossible.

Largest pumped storage power station

Dinorwig in Gwynedd is the UK’s largest pumped storage power station at 1,800MW, and the fourth biggest power station of any type. It’s capable of moving to peak capacity from standby in less than 16 seconds, which makes it a valuable tool for NESO in their role of balancing supply and demand on the grid.

The UK has four pumped storage stations in total, with Cruachan (440MW), Ffestiniog (360MW) and Foyers (300MW) all much smaller.

Largest wind farm

Hornsea 2, in the North Sea off the Yorkshire coast, is the UK’s largest operating wind farm at 1,386MW. Its neighbour Hornsea 1 is second at 1,218MW, followed by Seagreen off the Scottish coast at 1,075MW.

On land, the biggest is Viking on Shetland at 443MW, which shows that the largest wind farms in the UK are almost all offshore.

Several huge wind farms are being constructed on Dogger Bank, a large shallow sandbank in the North Sea. Find out more in our guide to the Dogger Bank Wind Farms.

How many power stations are there in the UK?

There’s no single definitive number, because it depends on what you count as a power station.

The government’s official list of major power producers included 1,364 sites at the end of May 2026, with a combined capacity of around 85GW. However, this data only covers power stations owned or operated by major power producers.

If you add smaller sites and domestic and commercial solar panels, the total runs into the millions.

Large-scale stations

Most people picture a large-scale station when they think of a power station, but the official list covers far more than gas, nuclear and biomass plants. The 1,364 sites break down as follows:

Type	Number	Total installed capacity (MW)	Average capacity (MW)
Nuclear	5	5,883	1,171
Bioenergy	20	3,838	192
Gas power (CCGT)	34	30,752	905
Conventional steam	1	120	120
Large Hydro	52	1,357	26
Offshore	52	16,885	325
Onshore	444	12,953	29
Pumped hydro	4	2,900	725
Solar	645	6,454	10
Gas power (Single cycle)	34	3,848	113
Small Hydro	73	110	2
Total	1,364	85,100	62

Renewable assets

There are now more than 2.1 million solar installations in the UK, and the capacity added in 2025 alone comprised 269,000 new installations, mostly small-scale systems on homes and businesses.

Embedded generation

Embedded generation is electricity produced on a site connected to the local network run by distribution network operators, rather than the national transmission grid.

Typical examples include commercial solar panels on a warehouse roof, or a combined heat and power unit at a factory or hospital.

The government records around 28.8GW of capacity from these smaller generators, about a quarter of the UK’s 113.9GW total, but doesn’t list them site by site.

Why large power stations still matter

Wind and solar now produce more than half the UK’s electricity, but large power stations still do jobs the grid can’t easily do without.

The main ones are keeping the grid stable, providing steady baseload power, responding quickly when demand changes and making sure there’s enough supply when the weather doesn’t help.

Baseload generation

Baseload is the minimum level of demand that’s always there, day and night. Nuclear stations are built to meet it by running steadily for long periods rather than switching on and off.

They’re still a big part of the mix, with nuclear accounting for 12.2% of UK electricity generation in 2025, although output fell to 35.9TWh, the lowest level since the 1980s.

Visit our dashboard to see the live fuel mix of the national grid.

Grid stability

Large gas, nuclear, biomass and hydro stations generate electricity with heavy spinning turbines.

The kinetic energy stored in these spinning parts produces inertia, which helps to stabilise the frequency of the entire grid.

Wind and solar don’t synchronise with the grid in a way that provides inertia, so as older stations close, the grid needs new ways to stay stable.

Flexibility

Demand rises and falls throughout the day, and wind and solar output changes with the weather.

Large gas and pumped storage stations can ramp up quickly to fill the gaps, which makes them a key part of flexible energy grids.

In cold, still weather, that role becomes critical. Last winter, cold and windless weather stretched the UK’s energy system, leading NESO to issue three capacity market notices and bring gas operators online to prevent blackouts.

Security of supply

Large stations that can be switched on whenever they’re needed, known as dispatchable stations, act as insurance against long periods of low wind and sun.

The government’s Clean Power 2030 plan keeps this backup in place, stating that security of supply will be protected with the maintenance of an expected 35 GW of unabated gas reserve capacity up to 2030.

Under NESO’s advice, those gas stations would stay available, but their use would be reduced to no more than 5% of total generation

Biggest power stations FAQs

Our experts answer your frequently asked questions about the biggest power stations.

Do wind farms count as power stations in UK statistics?

Yes. The government’s official list of power stations includes wind farms alongside gas, nuclear and biomass plants. The data doesn’t show micro wind generation sites.

What is the oldest operational power station in the UK?

Cwm Dyli, a hydro station in Eryri (Snowdonia), is the oldest. Built in 1906, it’s the UK’s longest continuously operating power station.

When it opened, it became the first power station in the UK to generate electricity using alternating current (AC). It’s now owned by RWE and has a 10MW capacity.

Which UK power station supplies the most homes?

No single power station supplies particular homes. Every station feeds into the national grid, which pools the electricity and sends it wherever it’s needed, so your home gets a mix from many sources. Where you live affects which stations are physically closest to you, but not which ones you rely on.

Are battery energy storage sites considered power stations?

Battery sites are usually treated as storage rather than power stations. They store electricity from the grid and release it later instead of generating it, so the government records them separately in its energy storage statistics rather than its main list of power stations.

Pumped storage stations like Dinorwig are the exception and are still counted. Many of the UK’s largest battery storage facilities sit alongside existing power stations and substations, where they can connect to the grid easily.

How often do the rankings of the UK’s biggest power stations change?

The official list is updated once a year and shows every station operating at the end of May. The next edition is due on 29 July 2027.

Which UK power station has the tallest structures?

The tallest structure at any UK power station is the chimney at Drax in North Yorkshire. At 259 metres, it’s the tallest industrial chimney in the UK, and it stands alongside 12 cooling towers.

Can a power station be the largest by generation but not by capacity?

Yes. A smaller station that runs constantly can produce more electricity over a year than a bigger one that only runs at peak times.

Dinorwig shows how far apart the two measures can be. It’s the fourth largest power station in the UK by capacity, but because it pumps water uphill before generating electricity, it uses more electricity than it produces.