Wells and Mendip Hills
Wells and Mendip Hills has 78 MW of clean power (almost all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 29,000 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, £3.5m across the constituency's 38,033 homes. A 50 MW battery was refused planning here in 2024; 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yanel Farm, Churchill Green - Solar Farm | Solar Photovoltaics | 18,000 homes | 49.9 MW | 2024-04 | 2.3 yrs |
| Bowerhouse Farm (extension) | Solar Photovoltaics | 7,200 homes | 19.8 MW | 2022-03 | 4.4 yrs |
| Smart Systems Limited, Arnolds Way - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 1,100 homes | 2.9 MW | 2023-10 | 2.8 yrs |
| Smart Systems | Wind Onshore | 900 homes | 1.0 MW | 2015-09 | 10.8 yrs |
| Smart Systems | Solar Photovoltaics | 400 homes | 1.0 MW | 2015-09 | 10.8 yrs |
| Arnolds Way, Yatton - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 300 homes | 0.8 MW | 2022-10 | 3.8 yrs |
| Langford - Roof Mounted Solar Photovoltaic Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 200 homes | 0.6 MW | 2022-04 | 4.3 yrs |
| Bellcombe Works, Brent Road - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 200 homes | 0.6 MW | 2022-09 | 3.9 yrs |
| Cadbury Garden And Leisure - Solar PV Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 200 homes | 0.5 MW | 2021-11 | 4.7 yrs |
| Showerings Cider Mill, Kilver Street - Solar Panels | Solar Photovoltaics | 100 homes | 0.3 MW | 2024-01 | 2.6 yrs |
| Cheddar Water Recycling Centre, Wedmore Road - Solar Farm | Solar Photovoltaics | — | — MW | 2023-11 | 2.7 yrs |
Plus 9 more approved within the last two years.
Batteries
| Site | Size | Status | While discharging |
|---|---|---|---|
| Station Road & Nye Road, Sandford - Battery Energy Storage System | 100 MW | in planning | could supply ≈350,000 homes |
| Yeowood Farm - Battery Energy Storage | 50 MW | refused 2024 | could supply ≈175,000 homes |
| Manor Farm, Wick Lane - Solar Farm & Battery Storage | 24 MW | in planning | could supply ≈84,000 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 Tessa Munt said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →