No.172 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Olivia Bailey (Labour) England

Reading West and Mid Berkshire

Reading West and Mid Berkshire has 32 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 11,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.5m across the constituency's 37,931 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.

how we worked this out

32 MW

of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 11,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 1.4× the renewable capacity actually running here.

4 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out

£3.5m

is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 37,931 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

4 of 4 waiting projects · years since approval

Sulhamstead Solar Field - Stud Farm 5 MW

9.3 YRS

Bloomfield Hatch Farm - Solar Farm & Battery 26 MW

3.9 YRS

Renegade Brewery, Frilsham - Solar Panels 0.5 MW

3.1 YRS

Hillfields, Burghfield Common - Solar Array 0.4 MW

2.7 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026

Site	Technology	Enough for	Capacity	Approved	Waiting
Bloomfield Hatch Farm - Solar Farm & Battery	Solar Photovoltaics	9,400 homes	25.8 MW	2022-09	3.9 yrs
Sulhamstead Solar Field - Stud Farm	Solar Photovoltaics	1,800 homes	5.0 MW	2017-04	9.3 yrs
Renegade Brewery, Frilsham - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	200 homes	0.5 MW	2023-07	3.1 yrs
Hillfields, Burghfield Common - Solar Array	Solar Photovoltaics	200 homes	0.4 MW	2023-11	2.7 yrs

Plus 6 more approved within the last two years.

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 Olivia Bailey said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)