Hitchin
Hitchin has 50 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 18,000 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, £3.7m across the constituency's 40,758 homes. There is also 20 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.
Ranks 135 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stevenage Road, Titmore Green - Battery Energy StoraPivoted Power Llp | Battery | 57 MW |
Waiting 1.2 years for a planning decisionWho can move it: North Hertfordshire Council |
| Wymondley Solar Farm, Great WymondleyAGR Power Limited | Solar | 18,000 homes 50 MW |
Approved 2 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company |
| Wandon End - Solar Farm & Battery StorageEPL 002 Limited | Solar | 18,000 homes 50 MW |
Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company |
What else is in the briefing
- All 5 projects, each with its planning reference and the organisation that holds the next decision
- Every approval a project still needs, and which of them the public can see
- What building them would mean here — community payments, business rates and construction work
- How Hitchin compares with its neighbouring constituencies
- Drafted parliamentary questions and letters, filled in with this seat's figures
- 3 story angles for local reporting
- A two-page PDF, and a newsroom edition with the references and who to call