Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard
Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard has 76 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 28,000 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, £4.1m across the constituency's 44,211 homes. A 350 MW battery was refused planning here in 2025; while discharging it could have supplied about 1,226,000 homes.
here
The waiting list
Every approved, unbuilt project
| Site | Technology | Enough for | Capacity | Approved | Waiting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chalgrave Manor, Luton Road - Solar Farm | Solar Photovoltaics | 15,000 homes | 40.0 MW | 2023-05 | 3.2 yrs |
| Grounds Farm - Solar farm | Solar Photovoltaics | 7,300 homes | 20.0 MW | 2021-10 | 4.8 yrs |
| Trinity Hall Solar Farm | Solar Photovoltaics | 5,400 homes | 15.0 MW | 2021-05 | 5.2 yrs |
| Leighton Linslade Water Recycling Centre - PV Array | Solar Photovoltaics | 200 homes | 0.5 MW | 2023-12 | 2.6 yrs |
| Unit B, Chiltern Park Industrial Estate - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.4 MW | 2021-03 | 5.4 yrs |
| Lister House, Blackburn Road - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.1 MW | 2024-04 | 2.3 yrs |
| Tebworth - Solar Farm | Solar Photovoltaics | — | — MW | 2022-05 | 4.2 yrs |
Plus 3 more approved within the last two years.
Batteries
| Site | Size | Status | While discharging |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bury Farm, Dickens Lane - Battery Energy Storage System | 350 MW | refused 2025 | could supply ≈1,226,000 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 →
What has Alex Mayer said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →