No.157 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Mr Luke Charters (Labour) England

York Outer

York Outer has 42 MW of clean power (almost all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 15,000 homes. Britain's grid bottlenecks still add to bills here: about £92 a year per household, £3.7m across the constituency's 40,162 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

42 MW

of clean power — almost all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 15,000 homes. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning.

6 projects · 41 MW solar, 0.5 MW hydro · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out

£3.7m

is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 40,162 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

Naburn Weir Hydro 0.5 MW

6.5 YRS

Haggwood Farm, Broad Highway - Solar Panels 0.2 MW

3.3 YRS

Westhouse Farm, Elvington - Solar Array 0.2 MW

3.3 YRS

Walbutts Sewage Works, Brecks Lane - Solar Array 0.3 MW

2.8 YRS

Hessay Solar Farm 40 MW

2.4 YRS

Newlands Farm, Wigginton - Solar Panels 0.3 MW

2.2 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

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

Site	Technology	Enough for	Capacity	Approved	Waiting
Hessay Solar Farm	Solar Photovoltaics	15,000 homes	40.0 MW	2024-03	2.4 yrs
Naburn Weir Hydro	Small Hydro	600 homes	0.5 MW	2020-01	6.5 yrs
Walbutts Sewage Works, Brecks Lane - Solar Array	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.3 MW	2023-09	2.8 yrs
Newlands Farm, Wigginton - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.3 MW	2024-05	2.2 yrs
Haggwood Farm, Broad Highway - Solar Panels	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.2 MW	2023-04	3.3 yrs
Westhouse Farm, Elvington - Solar Array	Solar Photovoltaics	100 homes	0.2 MW	2023-04	3.3 yrs

Plus 9 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
East York Energy Hub	250 MW	approved, not built 2025	could supply ≈876,000 homes
Murton Way - Battery Energy Storage	100 MW	approved, not built 2025	could supply ≈350,000 homes
Monets Garden Battery, Osbaldwick - Energy Storage Facility	50 MW	approved, not built 2025	could supply ≈175,000 homes
Osbaldwick Substation	50 MW	operating 2020	could supply ≈175,000 homes
Meadowville, Hull Road - Battery Energy Storage System	48 MW	approved, not built 2025	could supply ≈168,000 homes
Sutton-on-the-Forest, Brownmoor Lane -BESS	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 Mr Luke Charters said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)