ENERGYMAP
No.111 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Chris Vince (Labour (Co-op)) England

Harlow

Harlow has 56 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 20,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £4.1m across the constituency's 45,079 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.
how we worked this out
56 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 20,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning.
11 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£4.1m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 45,079 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

6 of 11 waiting projects · years since approval
Gates Of Harlow, Edinburgh Way - Solar Panels 0.2 MW
4.2 YRS
Poundland Distribution Centre - Solar Photovoltaic System 1.5 MW
4.1 YRS
Calder House, Central Road - Solar Panels 0.4 MW
3.6 YRS
Icon Industrial Estate - Solar Panels 0.5 MW
3.1 YRS
Icon Harlow, Unit B - Solar Panels 0.8 MW
3.1 YRS
Icon Harlow, Third Avenue - Solar Photovoltaic Panels 0.7 MW
3.1 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
East End Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.9 MW2024-052.2 yrs
Poundland Distribution Centre - Solar Photovoltaic SystemSolar Photovoltaics500 homes1.5 MW2022-074.1 yrs
Icon Harlow, Unit B - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.8 MW2023-063.1 yrs
Icon Harlow, Third Avenue - Solar Photovoltaic PanelsSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.7 MW2023-063.1 yrs
Harlow Leisurezone, Second Avenue - Solar panelsSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.7 MW2024-042.3 yrs
Wrights Flour Mills, Roydon Road - Solar Photovoltaic PanelsSolar Photovoltaics200 homes0.6 MW2023-073.1 yrs
Gsk Icon Harlow - Solar Photovoltaic PanelsSolar Photovoltaics200 homes0.6 MW2023-112.7 yrs
Icon Harlow, Unit C - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics200 homes0.6 MW2023-063.1 yrs
Icon Industrial Estate - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics200 homes0.5 MW2023-063.1 yrs
Calder House, Central Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.4 MW2022-123.6 yrs
Gates Of Harlow, Edinburgh Way - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2022-054.2 yrs

Plus 1 more approved within the last two years.

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 Chris Vince said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)