No.68 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Dave Robertson (Labour) England

Lichfield

Lichfield has 101 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 37,000 homes. No wind farm here is paid to switch off. Almost every pound of that money goes to wind farms in Scotland, held back by the crowded wires at the border. The cost is shared across every bill in Britain, so households here pay too: about £92 a year per household, £3.8m across the constituency's 41,812 homes. A 200 MW battery was refused planning here in 2026; while discharging it could have supplied about 701,000 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

101 MW

of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 37,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 55.9× the renewable capacity actually running here.

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

£3.8m

is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 41,812 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

Colton Mill Farm & Cawarden Springs Farm - S 50 MW

4.8 YRS

Black Flatts Solar Farm 50 MW

4.2 YRS

Newell Rubbermaid, Halifax Avenue - Solar Pa 1 MW

3.2 YRS

Steel Processing Midlands, Burntwood Busines 0 MW

2.4 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

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

Site	Technology	Enough for	Capacity	Approved	Waiting
Colton Mill Farm & Cawarden Springs Farm - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	18,000 homes	49.9 MW	2021-11	4.8 yrs
Black Flatts Solar Farm	Solar Photovoltaics	18,000 homes	49.9 MW	2022-05	4.2 yrs
Newell Rubbermaid, Halifax Avenue - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	200 homes	0.6 MW	2023-05	3.2 yrs
Steel Processing Midlands, Burntwood Business Park - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.2 MW	2024-03	2.4 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
Armitage Road, Armitage - Battery Energy Storage	200 MW	refused 2026	could supply ≈701,000 homes
Lions Den, Hammerwich - Battery Storage Facility	100 MW	approved, not built 2025	could supply ≈350,000 homes
Hawkesyard Estate, Rugeley Road - Battery Energy Storage	100 MW	in planning	could supply ≈350,000 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.

Read the full method, including everything we cannot see →

What has Dave Robertson said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)