No.159 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat) England

Honiton and Sidmouth

Honiton and Sidmouth has 39 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 14,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.8m across the constituency's 41,238 homes. A 150 MW battery was refused planning here in 2025; while discharging it could have supplied about 526,000 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.

how we worked this out

39 MW

of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 14,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 0.5× the renewable capacity actually running here.

3 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out

£3.8m

is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 41,238 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 3 waiting projects · years since approval

Rockbeare Hill 15 MW

6.0 YRS

Beavor - Photovoltaic Solar Arrays 19 MW

4.5 YRS

Little Toms - Solar Farm 5 MW

2.1 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026

Site	Technology	Enough for	Capacity	Approved	Waiting
Beavor - Photovoltaic Solar Arrays	Solar Photovoltaics	6,900 homes	18.9 MW	2022-02	4.5 yrs
Rockbeare Hill	Solar Photovoltaics	5,400 homes	15.0 MW	2020-07	6.0 yrs
Little Toms - Solar Farm	Solar Photovoltaics	1,800 homes	5.0 MW	2024-06	2.1 yrs

Plus 2 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →

Site	Size	Status	While discharging
Stammery Hill - Battery Energy Storage System	150 MW	refused 2025	could supply ≈526,000 homes
Pound Road, Hawkchurch - Battery Energy Storage	120 MW	refused 2024	could supply ≈420,000 homes
Pound Road, Hawkchurch - Battery Energy Storage System	120 MW	refused 2023	could supply ≈420,000 homes
Newlands Farm, Crewkerne Road - Battery Energy Storage	80 MW	refused 2025	could supply ≈280,000 homes
Wareham Road, Scouse Farm - Battery Storage	50 MW	refused 2025	could supply ≈175,000 homes
National Grid Axminster Substation	50 MW	in planning	could supply ≈175,000 homes
Langford Solar Farm	35 MW	operating 2022	could supply ≈123,000 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 Foord said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)