The United Kingdom (UK) government has set an ambitious goal to achieve net zero for carbon emissions by 2030. This includes supporting domestic strategies, such as use of heat pumps (HPs), domestic photovoltaic energy generation (solar panels, DPV), and electric vehicles (EVs). However, many UK residences need to be upgraded to electric heat in order to take advantage of HPs, UK residents face socioeconomic limitations to installing and using DPV, and there is a lack of infrastructure in the UK to support charging EVs. The UK also promotes sustainable industrial energy generation strategies through expanding industrial wind capacity (WC) and solar capacity (ISC). The aim of this analysis was to evaluate the relationship between WC, ISC, and industrial and commercial underlying annual energy consumption (IC), and to quantify the association of both domestic and industrial sustainable energy solutions with peak energy demand (PD) among primary substations (PSs) on the UK’s Northern Powergrid (NP). NP data from 2022 from 541 PS service areas were analysed. Bivariate analysis showed no association between the following variables and IC: ISC, WC, number of EVs, number of HPs, DPV, and PD. In multivariate analysis, it was also found that PD at PSs was driven mainly by DC, with EVs and especially HPs associated with increased PD at PSs. These results show that IC does not represent a burden on the electric grid, especially compared to DC, which is responsible for levels of PD at PSs. Nevertheless, the variable nature of renewable energy sources can result in energy surpluses that cannot be used to mitigate PD at PSs. Time-of-use (TOU) pricing could encourage energy interaction between PSs. Other potential solutions are hydrogen storage systems and thermal energy storage (TES) systems. For the UK to achieve its net zero goals and reduce PD at PSs, it is recommended that sustainable industrial energy solutions such as WC and ISC be expanded.
