No.163 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat) England

West Dorset

West Dorset has 37 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 13,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £4.0m across the constituency's 43,222 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.
37 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 13,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 0.4× the renewable capacity actually running here.
11 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£4.0m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 43,222 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 11 waiting projects · years since approval
Burton Bradstock Solar Panels
5.6 YRS
County Hall - Solar Panels 0.2 MW
4.7 YRS
Higher Stockbridge Farm 35 MW
4.6 YRS
High East - Solar Panels 0.3 MW
3.9 YRS
Dorchesters Corn Exchange - Solar Panels & Biomass Boiler
3.8 YRS
Atrim Road, Dottery - Solar Panels 0.2 MW
3.4 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Higher Stockbridge FarmSolar Photovoltaics13,000 homes35.0 MW2021-124.6 yrs
Golden Cap Holiday Park, Seatown - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2023-053.2 yrs
High East - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.3 MW2022-093.9 yrs
Atrim Road, Dottery - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-023.4 yrs
County Hall - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2021-114.7 yrs
Highlands End Holiday Park, Highlands End -Solar PV PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-102.8 yrs
Prince Of Wales Road - Solar Photovoltaic EquipmentSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-063.1 yrs
Bridec Melamine Boards, West Bay Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-083.0 yrs
Copse Barn, Wytherston Farm - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.1 MW2024-072.0 yrs
Burton Bradstock Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics— MW2021-015.6 yrs
Dorchesters Corn Exchange - Solar Panels & Biomass BoilerSolar Photovoltaics— MW2022-103.8 yrs

Plus 2 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Caswell Farm, Common Lane - Battery Energy Storage20 MWcould supply ≈70,000 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 Edward Morello said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)