No.34 of 650 · approved, not built MP: David Reed (Conservative) England

Exmouth and Exeter East

Exmouth and Exeter East has 150 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 55,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.9m across the constituency's 42,783 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.
150 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 55,000 homes — about as many homes as this constituency has. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 3.0× the renewable capacity actually running here.
11 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.9m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 42,783 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

4 of 11 waiting projects · years since approval
Paytherden Solar Farm (Peradon) 49 MW
3.7 YRS
Higher Hawkerland Farm, Sidmouth Road - Solar Farm 18 MW
3.3 YRS
Rutton Farm, Whimple - Horton Solar Farm 50 MW
3.1 YRS
Ford Oaks Solar & Green Infrastructure Facility 30 MW
2.7 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Rutton Farm, Whimple - Horton Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.9 MW2023-063.1 yrs
Paytherden Solar Farm (Peradon)Solar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.0 MW2022-123.7 yrs
Ford Oaks Solar & Green Infrastructure FacilitySolar Photovoltaics11,000 homes30.0 MW2023-112.7 yrs
Higher Hawkerland Farm, Sidmouth Road - Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics6,500 homes18.0 MW2023-043.3 yrs
Westexe, Greendale Business Park - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics400 homes1.1 MW2024-022.5 yrs
Crealy Adventure Park, Clyst St Mary - Solar ArraySolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.9 MW2022-093.9 yrs
Devon Cliffs Holiday Centre, Sandy Bay - Solar panelsSolar Photovoltaics200 homes0.5 MW2023-033.4 yrs
David Lloyd Leisure Club, Sandy Park Way - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.4 MW2023-092.9 yrs
Darts Farm Shopping Village, Clyst St George - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-033.4 yrs
William Pollard & Co, Oak House - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2022-093.9 yrs
The Vapormatic Company - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.1 MW2023-063.1 yrs

Plus 5 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Saundercroft Farm - Battery Energy Storage System290 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈1,016,000 homes
Exeter Substation, Broadclyst - Battery Energy Storage125 MWapproved, not built 2026could supply ≈438,000 homes
National Grid Substation - Battery Energy Storage System100 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈350,000 homes
Blackhill Quarry, Woodbury - Battery Energy Storage Facility60 MWapproved, not built 2023could supply ≈210,000 homes
Saundercroft Road, Broadclyst - Battery Energy Storage System57 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈200,000 homes
Higher Bagmore Farm, Ebford Lane -Battery Energy Storage System50 MWcould supply ≈175,000 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 David Reed said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)