No.64 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Sarah Gibson (Liberal Democrat) England

Chippenham

Chippenham has 103 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 38,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.8m across the constituency's 40,998 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.
103 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 38,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 1.0× the renewable capacity actually running here.
9 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.8m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 40,998 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 9 waiting projects · years since approval
Wick Farm Melksham Substation 50 MW
4.6 YRS
Edinburgh Way - Solar Photovolatic Panel 0.7 MW
3.9 YRS
Parsonage Way - Solar Panels 1.6 MW
3.8 YRS
Forest Gate - Solar Farm & Battery Storage 50 MW
3.4 YRS
Wiltshire College, Lackham - Solar Panels 0.3 MW
3.3 YRS
Moonraker Farm, Gastard - Solar Panels 0.2 MW
3.1 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Wick Farm Melksham SubstationSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.9 MW2021-124.6 yrs
Forest Gate - Solar Farm & Battery StorageSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.9 MW2023-033.4 yrs
Parsonage Way - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics600 homes1.6 MW2022-103.8 yrs
Edinburgh Way - Solar Photovolatic PanelSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.7 MW2022-093.9 yrs
Wiltshire College, Lackham - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2023-043.3 yrs
Morrisons, West Cepen Way - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2024-032.4 yrs
Moonraker Farm, Gastard - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-063.1 yrs
St Marys School, Curzon Street - Solar panelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2024-072.0 yrs
Springfield Community Campus, Beechfield Road - Solar Photovoltaic ArraysSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2024-042.3 yrs

Plus 1 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Brockleaze, Neston Park Estate - Battery Energy Storage450 MWcould supply ≈1,577,000 homes
Forest Gate - Solar Farm & Battery Storage40 MWapproved, not built 2023could supply ≈140,000 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 Sarah Gibson said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)