No.69 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Simon Hoare (Conservative) England

North Dorset

North Dorset has 97 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 35,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.7m across the constituency's 40,125 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.
97 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 35,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 1.0× the renewable capacity actually running here.
11 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.7m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 40,125 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

3 of 11 waiting projects · years since approval
Blandford Hill - EV Charging Station & Solar Farm 15 MW
4.5 YRS
Fernbrook - Solar farm & Battery storage 50 MW
3.5 YRS
North Dairy Farm Solar Farm 30 MW
2.6 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Fernbrook - Solar farm & Battery storageSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.9 MW2023-023.5 yrs
North Dairy Farm Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics11,000 homes30.0 MW2024-012.6 yrs
Blandford Hill - EV Charging Station & Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics5,400 homes15.0 MW2022-014.5 yrs
Brickfields Business Park, Unit 17 - Solar panelsSolar Photovoltaics200 homes0.6 MW2023-073.0 yrs
Brickfields Business Park, Unit 35 - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2023-053.2 yrs
Riversmeet, Hardings Lane - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-063.1 yrs
Dextra Group, Brickfields Business Park - Solar PV SystemsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2024-042.3 yrs
Brickfields Business Park, Unit 16 - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-053.2 yrs
Brickfields Business Park, Unit 24 - Solar panelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-053.2 yrs
St Giles House, Creech Hill - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.1 MW2024-012.5 yrs
Hospital Metalcraft, Blandford Heights Industrial Estate - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics— MW2023-013.5 yrs

Plus 3 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Shaftesbury Energy Park - Battery Storage System100 MWapproved, not built 2023could supply ≈350,000 homes
Hawkers Hill Energy Park20 MWoperating 2017could supply ≈70,000 homes
South Farm Solar Park10 MWoperating 2020could supply ≈35,000 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 Simon Hoare said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)