No.36 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat) England

Ely and East Cambridgeshire

Ely and East Cambridgeshire has 145 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 53,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £4.1m across the constituency's 44,828 homes. A 90 MW battery was refused planning here in 2026; while discharging it could have supplied about 315,000 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.
145 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 53,000 homes — about as many homes as this constituency has. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 0.6× the renewable capacity actually running here.
10 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£4.1m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 44,828 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

3 of 10 waiting projects · years since approval
Burwell Solar Farm 50 MW
5.7 YRS
North Angle Farm 29 MW
5.7 YRS
Newmarket Road, Bottisham - Solar Array 50 MW
2.6 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Burwell Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.9 MW2020-115.7 yrs
Newmarket Road, Bottisham - Solar ArraySolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.9 MW2023-122.6 yrs
North Angle FarmSolar Photovoltaics11,000 homes29.4 MW2020-115.7 yrs
Chittering Solar Farm - extension 2Solar Photovoltaics3,500 homes9.6 MW2015-0611.1 yrs
Goose Hall Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics1,800 homes5.0 MW2021-035.4 yrs
The Harbour School, Station Road - Solar Panels & ASHPSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.9 MW2022-113.7 yrs
Lees Packhouse, The Gault - Solar PV SystemSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2023-063.2 yrs
Cambridge Commodities, Lancaster Way Business Park - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2024-012.6 yrs
Mettleham Farm Centre, Hasse Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.1 MW2023-033.4 yrs
The Cloisters - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics— MW2023-063.1 yrs

Plus 4 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Wicken Bridleway, Church Road - Battery Energy Storage400 MWapproved, not built 2026could supply ≈1,402,000 homes
Land Southwest of Hightown Drove, Burwell - Battery Energy Storage System90 MWrefused 2026could supply ≈315,000 homes
Newmarket Road, Bottisham - Battery Energy Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2023could supply ≈175,000 homes
Burwell - Battery Storage50 MWoperating 2018could supply ≈175,000 homes
Anchor Lane, Burwell - Battery Energy Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈175,000 homes
Reach Road50 MWapproved, not built 2020could supply ≈175,000 homes
Weirs Drove, Burwell - Battery Storage Facility30 MWcould supply ≈105,000 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 Charlotte Cane said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)