No.319 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Mike Wood (Conservative) England

Kingswinford and South Staffordshire

Kingswinford and South Staffordshire has 2.5 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 900 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.5m across the constituency's 38,381 homes. A 100 MW battery was refused planning here in 2025; while discharging it could have supplied about 350,000 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.
2.5 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 900 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 0.2× the renewable capacity actually running here.
4 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.5m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 38,381 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 4 waiting projects · years since approval
Valiant Way, Pendeford 1.2 MW
4.7 YRS
Valiant Way, Pendeford - Solar Panels 0.9 MW
3.4 YRS
i54 Project Trent - Solar Panels 0.3 MW
2.8 YRS
Balliol Business Park, Balliol Road - Solar Panels 0.2 MW
2.4 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Valiant Way, PendefordSolar Photovoltaics400 homes1.2 MW2021-114.7 yrs
Valiant Way, Pendeford - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.9 MW2023-033.4 yrs
i54 Project Trent - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2023-102.8 yrs
Balliol Business Park, Balliol Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2024-032.4 yrs

Plus 3 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Pool Hall Farm, Lower Penn - Battery Storage100 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈350,000 homes
Orchard Farm, Langley Road - Battery Energy Storage System100 MWrefused 2025could supply ≈350,000 homes
Ebstree Road, Trysull, Seisdon - Battery Energy Storage100 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈350,000 homes
Canalside - Battery Storage System60 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈210,000 homes
Penstone Lane, Penn 1 - Battery Storage Facility50 MWapproved, not built 2022could supply ≈175,000 homes
Penstone Lane, Lower Penn 2 - Battery Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2022could supply ≈175,000 homes
South Staffordshire Railway Walk, Castlecroft - Battery Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2022could supply ≈175,000 homes
Hinksford Substation, Hinksford Lane - Battery Energy Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈175,000 homes
Ebstree Road, Trysull - Battery Energy Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈175,000 homes
Wombourne Road, Wombourne - Battery Energy Storage System50 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈173,000 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 Mike Wood said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)