No.120 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Sam Rushworth (Labour) England

Bishop Auckland

Bishop Auckland has 52 MW of clean power (almost all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 19,000 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, £3.9m across the constituency's 42,733 homes.

Not visible
here

8 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.

how we worked this out

52 MW

of clean power — almost all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 19,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 6.5× the renewable capacity actually running here.

6 projects · 52 MW solar, 0.2 MW hydro · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out

£3.9m

is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 42,733 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

6 of 6 waiting projects · years since approval

Moss Moor Service Reservoir 0.2 MW

7.5 YRS

Tesco Store Bishop Auckland 0.5 MW

6.6 YRS

Evenwood Lane, Evenwood - Solar PV System 0.6 MW

4.6 YRS

Electrix International, South Church Enterprise Park - Solar Panels 0.2 MW

3.3 YRS

Bishop Auckland College, Woodhouse Lane - Solar Pv Panels 0.2 MW

2.6 YRS

Bluestone Farm, Low Lands - Solar Farm 50 MW

2.2 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026

Site	Technology	Enough for	Capacity	Approved	Waiting
Bluestone Farm, Low Lands - Solar Farm	Solar Photovoltaics	18,000 homes	50.0 MW	2024-05	2.2 yrs
Evenwood Lane, Evenwood - Solar PV System	Solar Photovoltaics	200 homes	0.6 MW	2021-12	4.6 yrs
Tesco Store Bishop Auckland	Solar Photovoltaics	200 homes	0.5 MW	2020-01	6.6 yrs
Bishop Auckland College, Woodhouse Lane - Solar Pv Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.2 MW	2023-12	2.6 yrs
Moss Moor Service Reservoir	Small Hydro	200 homes	0.2 MW	2019-02	7.5 yrs
Electrix International, South Church Enterprise Park - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.2 MW	2023-04	3.3 yrs

Plus 2 more approved within the last two years.

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 Sam Rushworth said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)