No.22 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Dr Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat) England

South Cotswolds

South Cotswolds has 194 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 70,000 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, £3.7m across the constituency's 40,511 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.
194 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 70,000 homes — about as many homes as this constituency has. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 0.9× the renewable capacity actually running here.
10 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.7m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 40,511 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

6 of 10 waiting projects · years since approval
Siddington Solar Farm 20 MW
5.2 YRS
Minety Substation 40 MW
4.3 YRS
Leigh Delamere - Solar farm & Battery storage 50 MW
4.0 YRS
Mopes Lane, Purton - Solar Farm 20 MW
3.3 YRS
Crudwell Road Solar Farm & Battery Storage 50 MW
2.9 YRS
Malmesbury Road Solar Farm 13 MW
2.8 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Crudwell Road Solar Farm & Battery StorageSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.9 MW2023-082.9 yrs
Leigh Delamere - Solar farm & Battery storageSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.9 MW2022-084.0 yrs
Minety SubstationSolar Photovoltaics15,000 homes40.0 MW2022-044.3 yrs
Mopes Lane, Purton - Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics7,300 homes20.0 MW2023-043.3 yrs
Siddington Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics7,200 homes19.9 MW2021-055.2 yrs
Malmesbury Road Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics4,700 homes13.0 MW2023-102.8 yrs
Chelworth Park, Chelworth Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2024-062.1 yrs
Tetbury Audi, Quercus Road - Solar ArraySolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2022-113.7 yrs
St Modwen Park, Motorway - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2022-123.6 yrs
Cotswold District Council, Trinity Road - Solar panelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2024-012.6 yrs

Plus 5 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Lime Down - Battery Storage500 MWcould supply ≈1,752,000 homes
Stonehill Energy Storage / Lower Minety50 MWoperating 2020could supply ≈175,000 homes
Fairholme, Minety - Battery Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈175,000 homes
Stonehill Energy Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈175,000 homes
Stonehill Energy Storage / Upper Minety50 MWoperating 2017could supply ≈175,000 homes
Stonehill Energy Storage / Upper Minety50 MWoperating 2018could supply ≈175,000 homes
Minety South - Battery Storage50 MWoperating 2017could supply ≈175,000 homes
Minety South 2 - Battery Storage Facility50 MWoperating 2021could supply ≈175,000 homes
Ravensroost Farm, Minety - Battery Energy Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈175,000 homes
National Grid Minety Substation50 MWapproved, not built 2021could supply ≈175,000 homes
Leigh Delamere - Solar farm & Battery storage40 MWbeing built 2022could supply ≈140,000 homes
Red Barn - Solar Farm & Battery Storage40 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈140,000 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 Dr Roz Savage said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)