No.302 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Samantha Dixon (Labour) England

Chester North and Neston

Chester North and Neston has 2.9 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 1,100 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.8m across the constituency's 41,601 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

2.9 MW

of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 1,100 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 2.4× the renewable capacity actually running here.

8 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out

£3.8m

is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 41,601 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 8 waiting projects · years since approval

Victoria Road - Solar Panels 0.1 MW

4.8 YRS

Mill Lane - Solar System 0.3 MW

4.3 YRS

City Road - Solar panel 1 MW

4.0 YRS

Big Storage Self Storage, Sealand Road - Solar Panels 0.2 MW

3.8 YRS

Urenco Uk Limited, Capenhurst Lane - Solar Panels 0.2 MW

3.0 YRS

Inchcape Volkswagen Chester, Sealand Road - Solar PV System 0.4 MW

2.9 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

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

Site	Technology	Enough for	Capacity	Approved	Waiting
City Road - Solar panel	Solar Photovoltaics	400 homes	1.0 MW	2022-07	4.0 yrs
Inchcape Volkswagen Chester, Sealand Road - Solar PV System	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.4 MW	2023-08	2.9 yrs
Sainsburys, Caldy Valley Road - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.4 MW	2024-03	2.4 yrs
Mill Lane - Solar System	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.3 MW	2022-04	4.3 yrs
Chester Gates - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.3 MW	2024-01	2.6 yrs
Urenco Uk Limited, Capenhurst Lane - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.2 MW	2023-07	3.0 yrs
Big Storage Self Storage, Sealand Road - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.2 MW	2022-10	3.8 yrs
Victoria Road - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.1 MW	2021-10	4.8 yrs

Plus 3 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →

Site	Size	Status	While discharging
Mollington - Battery Energy Storage	240 MW	approved, not built 2026	could supply ≈841,000 homes
Rectory Lane - Energy Storage System	200 MW	approved, not built 2025	could supply ≈701,000 homes
Capenhurst Lane, Capenhurst - Battery Storage	100 MW	approved, not built 2023	could supply ≈350,000 homes
National Grid Electricity Substation, Capenhurst Lane - Battery Storage	100 MW	operating 2021	could supply ≈350,000 homes
Native River	57 MW	operating 2021	could supply ≈200,000 homes
Capenhurst Lane, Capenhurst - Battery storage	57 MW	being built 2022	could supply ≈200,000 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 Samantha Dixon said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)