South Antrim
South Antrim has 111 MW of clean power (mostly solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 64,000 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 42 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.
here
grid
The waiting list
Every approved, unbuilt project
| Site | Technology | Enough for | Capacity | Approved | Waiting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| South Antrim Solar Park - Phase 2Lands approx 550m South of, 99 Dublin Road, Antrim | Solar Photovoltaics | 14,000 homes | 39.5 MW | 2016-04 | 10.3 yrs |
| Steeple RoadLands extending north and south, 58 Niblock Road, Antrim | Solar Photovoltaics | 9,100 homes | 25.0 MW | 2018-05 | 8.2 yrs |
| Whappstown & Castlegore Windfarms65 Whappstown Road, Moorfields, Ballymena | Wind Onshore | 20,000 homes | 23.1 MW | 2019-08 | 7.0 yrs |
| Ballyutoag Wind FarmLand approximately 1km north of No. 71 Ballyutoag Road, Belfast, Co. Antrim | Wind Onshore | 10,000 homes | 11.5 MW | 2015-12 | 10.6 yrs |
| Seegronan Wind Farm ExtensionKilleter , Strabane , Co Tyrone | Wind Onshore | 7,900 homes | 9.0 MW | 2017-06 | 9.1 yrs |
| Lands at Ballyutoag RoadApprox 430m North East of no, 60 Ballyutoag Road, Belfast, Co Antrim | Wind Onshore | 2,000 homes | 2.3 MW | 2018-08 | 8.0 yrs |
| Laurel Lane12 Laurel Lane, Belfast, Co Antrim | Wind Onshore | 400 homes | 0.5 MW | 2020-04 | 6.3 yrs |
| Wind Turbine Alterations in RandalstownLands Approx 484m South West of 178 Staffordstown Road , Randalstown | Wind Onshore | 200 homes | 0.2 MW | 2022-05 | 4.2 yrs |
| Aughnabrack Road Replacement TurbineLands 300m north west of 40 Aughnabrack Road Ballyutoag | Wind Onshore | — | — MW | 2022-07 | 4.1 yrs |
| Boghill Road Wind TurbineLands 500m North of 63 Boghill Road Newtownabbey | Wind Onshore | — | — MW | 2022-10 | 3.8 yrs |
Plus 1 more approved within the last two years.
Batteries
| Site | Size | Status | While discharging |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carncome, Lislunnan Road - Battery Energy Storage | 150 MW | approved, not built 2026 | could supply ≈526,000 homes |
| Battery Energy Storage System Development in Ballymena | 79 MW | approved, not built 2025 | could supply ≈277,000 homes |
| Battery Energy Storage System Facility in Antrim | 50 MW | approved, not built 2025 | could supply ≈175,000 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 Robin Swann said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →