Burnley
Burnley has 1 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 400 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, £4.1m across the constituency's 45,122 homes. There is also 38 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it. A 100 MW battery was refused planning here in 2025; while discharging it could have supplied about 350,000 homes.
Ranks 416 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Old Vicarage, Reedley - Battery StorageEuropean Energy A/S | Battery | 100 MW |
Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company |
| Shuttleworth House, Higher Shuttleworth - Battery EnRenewable Connections Developments Limited | Battery | 100 MW |
Refused by Burnley Council in 2025Who can move it: Burnley Council |
| Padiham - Battery Energy StorageEnergi Generation Limited | Battery | 100 MW |
Refused by Burnley Council in 2024Who can move it: Burnley Council |
What else is in the briefing
- All 7 projects, each with its planning reference and the organisation that holds the next decision
- Every approval a project still needs, and which of them the public can see
- What building them would mean here — community payments, business rates and construction work
- How Burnley compares with its neighbouring constituencies
- Drafted parliamentary questions and letters, filled in with this seat's figures
- 3 story angles for local reporting
- A two-page PDF, and a newsroom edition with the references and who to call