North Bedfordshire
North Bedfordshire has 74 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 27,000 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, £3.9m across the constituency's 42,897 homes.
here
The waiting list
Every approved, unbuilt project
| Site | Technology | Enough for | Capacity | Approved | Waiting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Snakes Meadow - Solar Farm | Solar Photovoltaics | 17,000 homes | 45.5 MW | 2024-05 | 2.2 yrs |
| Goosey Lodge - Solar Farm | Solar Photovoltaics | 3,800 homes | 10.5 MW | 2023-05 | 3.2 yrs |
| Gooseys Lodge, Wymington Lane - Solar Farm | Solar Photovoltaics | 3,800 homes | 10.4 MW | 2024-05 | 2.2 yrs |
| Clapham Plateau - Solar Farm | Solar Photovoltaics | 2,000 homes | 5.5 MW | 2023-01 | 3.5 yrs |
| Oakley Primary Academy, Station Road - Solar Panels & ASHP | Solar Photovoltaics | 600 homes | 1.6 MW | 2023-02 | 3.4 yrs |
| Towers Health And Racquets Club, Clapham Road - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.3 MW | 2023-05 | 3.2 yrs |
| Old Warden Aerodrome, Old Warden Park - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.2 MW | 2024-01 | 2.5 yrs |
| G And M Growers, Hitchin Road - Solar Photovoltaics Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.2 MW | 2023-02 | 3.4 yrs |
| Stratton Business Park, Pegasus Drive - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | — | — MW | 2024-05 | 2.2 yrs |
Plus 6 more approved within the last two years.
Batteries
| Site | Size | Status | While discharging |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dunton Lane - Battery Energy Storage System | 200 MW | approved, not built 2025 | could supply ≈701,000 homes |
| Dunton Lane - Battery Energy Storage System | 177 MW | approved, not built 2025 | could supply ≈620,000 homes |
| Cobholden Battery Storage | 100 MW | approved, not built 2023 | could supply ≈350,000 homes |
| Thurleigh Road - Battery Energy Storage | 69 MW | approved, not built 2024 | could supply ≈242,000 homes |
| Moggerhanger Road, Sandy - Solar Farm | 20 MW | in planning | could supply ≈70,000 homes |
| Bedford Solar, Northill Road - Solar Farm & Battery Storage | 15 MW | in planning | could supply ≈53,000 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 →
What has Richard Fuller said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →