No.8 OF 650 · APPROVED, NOT BUILT MP: Nick Timothy (Conservative) England

West Suffolk

West Suffolk has 502 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 182,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £4.7m across the constituency's 50,690 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

502 MW

of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 182,000 homes — 4 times every household in this constituency. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 5.3× the renewable capacity actually running here.

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

£4.7m

is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 50,690 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

Silverline Office Equipment, James Carter Road - Solar PV Panels 0.6 MW

3.8 YRS

J K H Drainage Units, Chiswick Avenue - Solar Panels 0.3 MW

3.4 YRS

Hampstead Avenue, Mildenhall - Solar Panels 0.3 MW

3.2 YRS

Tuddenham Road, Higham - Ground Mounted Solar Array 0.3 MW

3.2 YRS

Old Church Lane, Westley - Solar Panels 0.2 MW

2.2 YRS

Sunnica Energy Farm (East and West) 500 MW

2.1 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

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

Site	Technology	Enough for	Capacity	Approved	Waiting
Sunnica Energy Farm (East and West)	Solar Photovoltaics	182,000 homes	500.0 MW	2024-07	2.1 yrs
Silverline Office Equipment, James Carter Road - Solar PV Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	200 homes	0.6 MW	2022-10	3.8 yrs
Hampstead Avenue, Mildenhall - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.3 MW	2023-06	3.2 yrs
J K H Drainage Units, Chiswick Avenue - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.3 MW	2023-03	3.4 yrs
Tuddenham Road, Higham - Ground Mounted Solar Array	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.3 MW	2023-06	3.2 yrs
Old Church Lane, Westley - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.2 MW	2024-05	2.2 yrs

Plus 7 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →

Site	Size	Status	While discharging
Wales End Road, Cavendish - Battery Energy Storage System	10 MW	in planning	could supply ≈35,000 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 Nick Timothy said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)