North Antrim
North Antrim has 22 MW of clean power (all 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. 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 119 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.
Ranks 191 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy Storage System Installation in RasharkinRenewable Energy Systems (RES) | Battery | 100 MW |
Waiting 1.4 years for a planning decisionWho can move it: Causeway Coast and Glens Council |
| Corkey Windfarm (repowering)ScottishPower Renewables | Onshore wind | 17,000 homes 20 MW |
Approved 4 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company |
| Solar PV Development in BallymenaHHT Management Limited | Solar | 900 homes 2.5 MW |
Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company |
What else is in the briefing
- All 5 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 North Antrim 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