South Northamptonshire
South Northamptonshire has 104 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 38,000 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 42,076 homes. A 50 MW battery was refused planning here in 2025; while discharging it could have supplied about 175,000 homes.
here
The waiting list
Every approved, unbuilt project
| Site | Technology | Enough for | Capacity | Approved | Waiting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Halse Road - Solar Farm & Battery Storage | Solar Photovoltaics | 18,000 homes | 49.9 MW | 2023-11 | 2.7 yrs |
| Welsh Lane | Solar Photovoltaics | 11,000 homes | 30.0 MW | 2021-11 | 4.7 yrs |
| Sparrow Lodge Farm | Solar Photovoltaics | 7,300 homes | 20.0 MW | 2021-03 | 5.4 yrs |
| Cherwell Valley Business Park - Solar Park | Solar Photovoltaics | 1,200 homes | 3.2 MW | 2022-05 | 4.2 yrs |
| Cheaney Drive, Grange Park Industrial Estate - Solar PV Modules | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.3 MW | 2024-02 | 2.4 yrs |
| Sainsburys Supermarkets, Wellington Road - Solar PV Array | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.2 MW | 2023-10 | 2.8 yrs |
| Whittlebury Park, High Street - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.2 MW | 2022-08 | 3.9 yrs |
| Whittlebury Park Golf & Country Club, High Street - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.2 MW | 2023-03 | 3.4 yrs |
| Station Farm - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.1 MW | 2022-06 | 4.1 yrs |
| Horton Lodge Farm - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.1 MW | 2022-10 | 3.8 yrs |
Plus 3 more approved within the last two years.
Batteries
| Site | Size | Status | While discharging |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vicarage Farm - Battery Energy Storage System | 50 MW | refused 2025 | could supply ≈175,000 homes |
| Grendon Lakes, Grendon - Battery Storage Facility | 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 Sarah Bool said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →