No.386 of 650 · approved, not built MP: James Asser (Labour) England

West Ham and Beckton

West Ham and Beckton has 1.4 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 500 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, £4.5m across the constituency's 49,201 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.

how we worked this out

1.4 MW

of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 500 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 0.4× the renewable capacity actually running here.

6 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out

£4.5m

is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 49,201 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 6 waiting projects · years since approval

Newham Dockside - Photovoltaic Panels 0.4 MW

4.4 YRS

Atlantis Avenue, Beckton - Solar PV Systems 0.4 MW

3.1 YRS

Knowledge Dock, University Way - Solar Panel 0.1 MW

2.9 YRS

Leyes Road - New SEN School 0.2 MW

2.7 YRS

University Of East London Dockland Campus, University Way - Soalr Panels

2.6 YRS

Ellen Wilkinson School, Tollgate Road - Solar PhotovoltaicPanels 0.2 MW

2.3 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026

Site	Technology	Enough for	Capacity	Approved	Waiting
Newham Dockside - Photovoltaic Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	200 homes	0.4 MW	2022-03	4.4 yrs
Atlantis Avenue, Beckton - Solar PV Systems	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.4 MW	2023-06	3.1 yrs
Leyes Road - New SEN School	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.2 MW	2023-11	2.7 yrs
Ellen Wilkinson School, Tollgate Road - Solar PhotovoltaicPanels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.2 MW	2024-04	2.3 yrs
Knowledge Dock, University Way - Solar Panel	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.1 MW	2023-09	2.9 yrs
University Of East London Dockland Campus, University Way - Soalr Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	—	— MW	2023-12	2.6 yrs

Plus 2 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 James Asser said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)