Neath and Swansea East
Neath and Swansea East has 27 MW of clean power (mostly onshore wind) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 19,000 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, £4.0m across the constituency's 43,355 homes. There is also 28 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.
Ranks 177 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pencaerlan Solar FarmGreentech Projects Holding UK Limited | Solar | 9,100 homes 25 MW |
Waiting 1.3 years for a planning decisionWho can move it: Welsh Government (NSIP) Council |
| Craig Y Perchych, Glais - Solar farmWindel Energy | Solar | 7,300 homes 20 MW |
Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company |
| John Green Frog Power Compound, John North Road - BaGreen Frog Power Limited | Battery | 20 MW |
Approved 4 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company |
What else is in the briefing
- All 7 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 Neath and Swansea East 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