No.146 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Charlie Maynard (Liberal Democrat) England

Witney

Witney has 48 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 17,000 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, £3.7m across the constituency's 40,272 homes.

Not visible
here
6.5 MW of wind is running in this constituency, but it sits on the local network rather than the national grid — so if it is paid to switch off, no national record shows it. That is why this seat has no figure here: not because nothing happens, but because nobody publishes it. The £ figure for this seat is a floor, not a zero.
48 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 17,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 0.8× the renewable capacity actually running here.
9 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.7m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 40,272 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 9 waiting projects · years since approval
Sheehan Recycled Aggregates Plant 1 MW
4.8 YRS
Downs Road, Curbridge Business Park - Solar Panels 1 MW
4.7 YRS
Ducklington Solar Farm 36 MW
4.4 YRS
Millets Farm Centre, Kingston Road - Solar Array 0.8 MW
3.5 YRS
Airsea Packaging, Range Road - Solar Panels 0.2 MW
3.2 YRS
Shilton Road - Solar Park 8 MW
3.1 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Ducklington Solar FarmSolar Photovoltaics13,000 homes36.0 MW2022-034.4 yrs
Shilton Road - Solar ParkSolar Photovoltaics2,900 homes8.0 MW2023-063.1 yrs
Sheehan Recycled Aggregates PlantSolar Photovoltaics400 homes1.0 MW2021-104.8 yrs
Downs Road, Curbridge Business Park - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics400 homes1.0 MW2021-124.7 yrs
Millets Farm Centre, Kingston Road - Solar ArraySolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.8 MW2023-013.5 yrs
Ducklington Mill, Standlake Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.7 MW2023-092.9 yrs
Airsea Packaging, Range Road - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.2 MW2023-053.2 yrs
Witney Community Hospital, Welch Way- Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics100 homes0.1 MW2023-112.8 yrs
Carterton Leisure Centre, Broadshires Way - Solar PanelsSolar Photovoltaics— MW2023-112.7 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
Witney Bypass, Stanton Harcourt Road - Battery Storage150 MWcould supply ≈526,000 homes
Aston Road, Aston - Solar Panels & Battery Energy Storage System40 MWcould supply ≈140,000 homes
Quarry Solar Farm & Battery Storage Facility35 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈123,000 homes
Snowswick Lane, Coleshill - Solar Farm25 MWcould supply ≈88,000 homes
Willowfields Energy Park, Marcham - 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 Charlie Maynard said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)