No.267 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Jim Dickson (Labour) England

Dartford

Dartford has 4.7 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 1,700 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.9m across the constituency's 42,525 homes. A 300 MW battery was refused planning here in 2024; while discharging it could have supplied about 1,051,000 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.
4.7 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 1,700 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning.
9 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.9m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 42,525 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
Millbrook Garden Centre, Station Road - Solar Photovoltaic Panels 0.5 MW
3.6 YRS
Princes Road - Solar Panels 0.1 MW
3.6 YRS
Bluewater Shopping Centre, Upper Thames Walk - Solar Photovoltaic Panel 1.3 MW
3.3 YRS
Riverbridge House, Admirals Park - Solar Panels 0.3 MW
3.1 YRS
One Hundred House, Brunel Way - Solar Panels 0.8 MW
3.0 YRS
Fairfield Pool, Lowfield Street - Solar Panels 0.4 MW
2.8 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Bluewater Shopping Centre, Upper Thames Walk - Solar Photovoltaic PanelSolar Photovoltaics500 homes1.3 MW2023-043.3 yrs
Northern Gateway Distribution Centre, Central Road North - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.8 MW2024-012.5 yrs
One Hundred House, Brunel Way - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.8 MW2023-083.0 yrs
Millbrook Garden Centre, Station Road - Solar Photovoltaic PanelsSolar Photovoltaics200 homes0.5 MW2022-123.6 yrs
Fairfield Pool, Lowfield Street - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.4 MW2023-102.8 yrs
David Lloyd Sports Centre, Darenth Road - Solar Photo Voltaic SystemSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2024-012.6 yrs
Riverbridge House, Admirals Park - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2023-073.1 yrs
Fairfield Centre, Lowfield Street - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-102.8 yrs
Princes Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.1 MW2023-013.6 yrs

Plus 3 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Foxhounds Lane, Southfleet - Battery Storage300 MWrefused 2024could supply ≈1,051,000 homes
Darenth Road - Battery Energy Storage System100 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈350,000 homes
New Barn Road - Battery Energy Storage Facility35 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈123,000 homes
Broadditch Battery Energy11 MWoperating 2018could supply ≈39,000 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 Jim Dickson said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)