No.70 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Lara Bird (Scottish National Party) Scotland

Arbroath and Broughty Ferry

Arbroath and Broughty Ferry has 96 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 35,000 homes. When the wires are too full to carry the power, Britain pays wind farms to switch off instead. No wind farm here is paid that way — almost all of it goes to wind farms in Scotland. That cost is shared across every bill in Britain, so households here pay for it too: about £92 a year per household, £4.2m across the constituency's 45,808 homes. A 50 MW battery was refused planning here in 2025; while discharging it could have supplied about 175,000 homes.

Not visible
here
5 MW of wind is running in this constituency, but it sits on the local network rather than the national grid — so if it is paid to switch off, no national record shows it. That is why this seat has no figure here: not because nothing happens, but because nobody publishes it. The £ figure for this seat is a floor, not a zero.
96 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 35,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 3.2× the renewable capacity actually running here.
7 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£4.2m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 45,808 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 7 waiting projects · years since approval
Montreathmont Moor Forest - Solar Farm & Battery Storage 42 MW
3.6 YRS
Kinnell Farm, Kinnell - Solar Farm & Battery Energy Storage 10 MW
2.7 YRS
Parkhill Farm, Letham Grange - Solar Farm 18 MW
2.6 YRS
Wellbank - Solar Farm 25 MW
2.5 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Montreathmont Moor Forest - Solar Farm & Battery StorageSolar Photovoltaics15,000 homes42.0 MW2022-123.6 yrs
Wellbank - Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics9,100 homes25.0 MW2024-022.5 yrs
Parkhill Farm, Letham Grange - Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics6,500 homes18.0 MW2023-122.6 yrs
Kinnell Farm, Kinnell - Solar Farm & Battery Energy StorageSolar Photovoltaics3,600 homes10.0 MW2023-112.7 yrs
Leisure Centre, Ethiebeaton Park - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.4 MW2024-022.5 yrs
Sir William Smith Road, Kirkton Industrial Estate - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2023-063.1 yrs
Police Station, Balunie Drive - Solar PV ArraySolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-013.5 yrs

Plus 4 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Tealing Battery Energy Storage Farm80 MWapproved, not built 2023could supply ≈280,000 homes
Bankhead, Arbirlot - Battery Energy Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈175,000 homes
Bindwells Battery Storage Facility50 MWapproved, not built 2026could supply ≈175,000 homes
Pitkerro Road - Battery Energy Storage50 MWrefused 2025could supply ≈175,000 homes
Arbroath Battery Storage35 MWoperating 2019could supply ≈123,000 homes
Denfield Farm20 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈70,000 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 Lara Bird said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)