No.198 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Rebecca Smith (Conservative) England

South West Devon

South West Devon has 20 MW of clean power (almost all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 7,700 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.8m across the constituency's 41,475 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.
20 MW
of clean power — almost all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 7,700 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 0.4× the renewable capacity actually running here.
14 projects · 20 MW solar, 0.5 MW hydro · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.8m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 41,475 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 14 waiting projects · years since approval
Plymouth Road, Plympton - Solar photovoltaic panels 0.2 MW
5.0 YRS
Tamerton Road, Roborough - Solar Panels 1 MW
4.3 YRS
Morrisons supermarket - Roof mounted Solar Photovoltaics 0.7 MW
4.2 YRS
Chelson Meadow - Solar Farm 13 MW
4.1 YRS
Western Wood Way, Plympton - Solar Panels 0.2 MW
4.0 YRS
Endsleigh Garden Centre, Endsleigh - Solar PV Panels 0.3 MW
3.7 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Chelson Meadow - Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics4,700 homes13.0 MW2022-064.1 yrs
Mayflower Water Treatment Works, Roborough Down - Solar ArraySolar Photovoltaics600 homes1.6 MW2024-022.4 yrs
Tamerton Road, Roborough - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics400 homes1.0 MW2022-044.3 yrs
Princess Yachts Limited, Coypool Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.8 MW2023-083.0 yrs
Princess Yachts Limited, Coypool Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.7 MW2023-083.0 yrs
Morrisons supermarket - Roof mounted Solar PhotovoltaicsSolar Photovoltaics200 homes0.7 MW2022-054.2 yrs
Princess Yachts Limited, Coypool Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics200 homes0.6 MW2023-083.0 yrs
Headon Works, Cornwood - Hydro Energy Storage FacilitySmall Hydro600 homes0.5 MW2024-032.4 yrs
Endsleigh Garden Centre, Endsleigh - Solar PV PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2022-123.7 yrs
Princess Yachts Limited, Coypool Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2023-083.0 yrs
Aldermans Tooling, Bell Close - Solar PV PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2023-033.4 yrs
Western Wood Way, Plympton - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2022-074.0 yrs
Bandvulc Remoulds, Gillard Way - Solar Photovoltaics SystemSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2024-012.5 yrs
Plymouth Road, Plympton - Solar photovoltaic panelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2021-075.0 yrs

Plus 3 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 Rebecca Smith said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)