ENERGYMAP
No.5 OF 650 · APPROVED, NOT BUILT MP: Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Conservative) England

North West Essex

North West Essex has 623 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 226,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.9m across the constituency's 42,575 homes.

Not visible
here
No big wind farm on the national grid is mapped to this constituency, so no switch-off payments show here in national data. Smaller wind farms on the local grid can still be paid to switch off — invisibly. The £ figure for this seat is a floor, not a zero.
how we worked this out
623 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 226,000 homes — 5 times every household in this constituency. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 9.1× the renewable capacity actually running here.
8 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.9m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 42,575 households in a year between them — £92 each, about 51 days of one home's electricity.
The £92 per household is a national figure — identical in every GB seat. Only the seat total varies, with the number of households · NESO · how we worked this out

The waiting list

4 of 8 waiting projects · years since approval
Stanstead Solar Project 14 MW
3.9 YRS
Longfield 500 MW
3.1 YRS
Thaxted - Solar farm 40 MW
2.6 YRS
Berden Hall Solar Farm 56 MW
2.0 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
LongfieldSolar Photovoltaics182,000 homes500.0 MW2023-063.1 yrs
Berden Hall Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics20,000 homes56.0 MW2024-072.0 yrs
Thaxted - Solar farmSolar Photovoltaics15,000 homes40.0 MW2023-122.6 yrs
Stanstead Solar ProjectSolar Photovoltaics5,200 homes14.3 MW2022-083.9 yrs
Dunmow Solar Farm, Chelmsford Road - Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics3,600 homes9.9 MW2024-072.1 yrs
Chesterford Park - Green Energy HubSolar Photovoltaics1,000 homes2.8 MW2022-123.6 yrs
St Marys School, Hampton Road - Solar panelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-083.0 yrs
Bridgemarsh Care Home, Main Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics—— MW2023-043.3 yrs

Plus 3 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Pelham49 MWoperatingcould supply ≈172,000 homes
Wickham Hall Estate - Battery Storage10 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈35,000 homes

What this page does not show

Smaller wind farms on the local grid are also switched off; national data does not show it, so the £ figure here is a floor, not a zero. Offshore wind is counted nationally, never per seat. The planning database can run a quarter behind reality.

Electricity does not travel from a particular project to particular houses. Everything generated goes into the national grid and everyone draws from that shared pool, so "enough for X homes" is a way of sizing the electricity — not a claim that these homes would be powered by this site. Battery storage is counted separately from generation: it moves power in time rather than making it.

Planning statuses come from the government's planning database (REPD), which records what was decided and when, but not why. Where a project was refused we say so and name the authority; for the reasons, look up the planning reference on that council's own register. How to check any figure on this page →

Read the full method, including everything we cannot see →

What has Mrs Kemi Badenoch said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)