No.49 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Richard Baker (Labour) Scotland

Glenrothes and Mid Fife

Glenrothes and Mid Fife has 121 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 44,000 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, £3.9m across the constituency's 42,861 homes. There is also 38 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.

Not visible
here
38 MW of wind is running in this constituency, but it sits on the local network rather than the national grid — so if it is paid to switch off, no national record shows it. That is why this seat has no figure here: not because nothing happens, but because nobody publishes it. The £ figure for this seat is a floor, not a zero.
121 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 44,000 homes — about as many homes as this constituency has. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 2.5× the renewable capacity actually running here.
10 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.9m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 42,861 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 10 waiting projects · years since approval
Land North of Balbeggie Avenue 12 MW
10.3 YRS
Westfield Solar Farm & Battery 30 MW
5.5 YRS
Strathruddie, Kinglassie - Solar farm 25 MW
4.4 YRS
Wemyss Estate - Randolph Solar Farm & Battery Energy Storage 50 MW
4.2 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Wemyss Estate - Randolph Solar Farm & Battery Energy StorageSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes50.0 MW2022-054.2 yrs
Westfield Solar Farm & BatterySolar Photovoltaics11,000 homes30.0 MW2021-025.5 yrs
Strathruddie, Kinglassie - Solar farmSolar Photovoltaics9,100 homes25.0 MW2022-034.4 yrs
Land North of Balbeggie AvenueSolar Photovoltaics4,400 homes12.0 MW2016-0310.3 yrs
Flexcon, Whitworth Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics500 homes1.5 MW2023-102.8 yrs
Leviton, Viewfield Industrial Estate - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics400 homes1.0 MW2022-113.7 yrs
Elmpark Sawmill, Leven Mills - Solar PV PanelsSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.9 MW2024-012.5 yrs
Donaldson Timber Engineering, Muiredge Industrial Estate - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2024-012.5 yrs
Flexel International, Telford Road - Solar ArraySolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-063.2 yrs
Police scotland, Detroit Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.1 MW2023-033.4 yrs

Plus 1 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Former Fife Power Station - Battery Energy Storage System100 MWcould supply ≈350,000 homes
Roaring Hill, Whinnyknowe - Battery Energy Storage System60 MWcould supply ≈210,000 homes
Wester Balbeggie Farm, Balbeggie Avenue - Battery Storage49 MWapproved, not built 2023could supply ≈172,000 homes
Ballingall Farm, Leslie - Battery Energy Storage System43 MWapproved, not built 2023could supply ≈151,000 homes
Wemyss Estate - Randolph Solar Farm & Battery Energy Storage25 MWapproved, not built 2022could supply ≈88,000 homes
Strathruddie, Kinglassie - Solar farm20 MWapproved, not built 2022could supply ≈70,000 homes
Westfield Solar Farm & Battery20 MWapproved, not built 2021could supply ≈70,000 homes
Land North of Thornton Road20 MWapproved, not built 2016could supply ≈70,000 homes
Balsillie Avenue - Roaring Hill Energy Storage Facility20 MWbeing built 2021could supply ≈70,000 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 Richard Baker said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)