No.74 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Anna Sabine (Liberal Democrat) England

Frome and East Somerset

Frome and East Somerset has 87 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 32,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.6m across the constituency's 38,645 homes. A 60 MW battery was refused planning here in 2026; while discharging it could have supplied about 210,000 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.
87 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 32,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 2.5× the renewable capacity actually running here.
8 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.6m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 38,645 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 8 waiting projects · years since approval
Marksbury Plain - Solar Park 15 MW
4.1 YRS
Lodge Hill, Berkley - Solar Park 14 MW
3.8 YRS
Bluebell Wood Solar Farm & Battery Storage 50 MW
2.1 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Bluebell Wood Solar Farm & Battery StorageSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.9 MW2024-072.1 yrs
Marksbury Plain - Solar ParkSolar Photovoltaics5,400 homes15.0 MW2022-074.1 yrs
Lodge Hill, Berkley - Solar ParkSolar Photovoltaics5,300 homes14.5 MW2022-103.8 yrs
Lodge Farm Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics1,800 homes5.0 MW2011-1214.7 yrs
Burges Lane, Stoke St Michael - Solar Array PanelsSolar Photovoltaics600 homes1.8 MW2024-012.6 yrs
Peter Green Haulage Limited, Leighton Lane Industrial Estate- Solar panelsSolar Photovoltaics200 homes0.5 MW2023-122.6 yrs
Bridges Electrical Engineers, Second Avenue - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2024-022.4 yrs
Optima Products, Mill Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2023-053.2 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
St Georges Cross Farm, Berkley Lane - Battery Energy Storage60 MWrefused 2026could supply ≈210,000 homes
Bluebell Wood Solar Farm & Battery Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈175,000 homes
Frome Power, Styles Close - Energy Storage Facility30 MWcould supply ≈105,000 homes
Ash Farm, Charlton Road - Battery Storage System10 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈35,000 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 Anna Sabine said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)