No.145 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Mr Cathal Mallaghan (Sinn Féin) Northern Ireland

Mid Ulster

Mid Ulster has 48 MW of clean power (almost all onshore wind) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 42,000 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. Northern Ireland is on the all-Ireland grid, so Britain's grid bottlenecks do not reach bills here in the same way. There is also 29 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.

Not visible
here
29 MW of wind is running in this constituency, but it sits on the local network rather than the national grid — so if it is paid to switch off, no national record shows it. That is why this seat has no figure here: not because nothing happens, but because nobody publishes it. The £ figure for this seat is a floor, not a zero.
48 MW
of clean power — almost all onshore wind — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 42,000 homes — about as many homes as this constituency has. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 1.4× the renewable capacity actually running here.
10 projects · 48 MW onshore wind, 0.1 MW solar · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
Different
grid
Northern Ireland is part of the all-Ireland Single Electricity Market, not the GB grid, so the GB grid-gap bill does not apply here.

The waiting list

6 of 10 waiting projects · years since approval
Tullyaran Road 0.2 MW
6.9 YRS
Brockaghboy Wind Farm (Further Extension) 10 MW
5.9 YRS
Corlacky Hill Wind Farm 36 MW
5.4 YRS
Wind Turbine Development in Stewartstown 0.1 MW
4.3 YRS
Sessiagh Road 0.2 MW
4.3 YRS
Airfield Road, The Creagh 0.1 MW
3.6 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Corlacky Hill Wind FarmWind Onshore32,000 homes36.3 MW2021-035.4 yrs
Brockaghboy Wind Farm (Further Extension)Wind Onshore8,700 homes10.0 MW2020-085.9 yrs
Wind Turbine Development in StewartstownWind Onshore600 homes0.7 MW2024-022.4 yrs
Sessiagh RoadWind Onshore200 homes0.2 MW2022-044.3 yrs
Gortagammon Road Replacement TurbineWind Onshore200 homes0.2 MW2024-052.2 yrs
Tullyaran RoadWind Onshore200 homes0.2 MW2019-096.9 yrs
Airfield Road, The CreaghWind Onshore100 homes0.1 MW2022-123.6 yrs
Wind Turbine Development in StewartstownWind Onshore100 homes0.1 MW2022-044.3 yrs
Solar PV Array Development in DungannonSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.1 MW2023-122.6 yrs
Drumard Road, Gulladuff - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics— MW2024-062.2 yrs

Plus 5 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Dungannon Energy Storage System50 MWbeing builtcould supply ≈175,000 homes
EV Charging Station Development in Toomebridge45 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈158,000 homes
Battery Energy Storage System Development in Moneymore20 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈70,000 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 Mr Cathal Mallaghan said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)