Burnley
Burnley has 1 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 400 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, £4.1m across the constituency's 45,122 homes. There is also 38 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it. A 100 MW battery was refused planning here in 2025; while discharging it could have supplied about 350,000 homes.
Ranks 416 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Old Vicarage, Reedley - Battery StorageEuropean Energy A/S | Battery | 100 MW | Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 23/0507/FUL |
| Shuttleworth House, Higher Shuttleworth - Battery Energy Storage SystemRenewable Connections Developments Limited | Battery | 100 MW | Refused by Burnley Council in 2025Who can move it: Burnley Council · planning ref FUL/2025/0344 |
| Padiham - Battery Energy StorageEnergi Generation Limited | Battery | 100 MW | Refused by Burnley Council in 2024Who can move it: Burnley Council · planning ref FUL/2024/0258 |
| Widow Hill, Balderstone Lane - Battery Energy Storage SystemP3P Partners LLP | Battery | 70 MW | Under constructionWho can move it: the developer · earliest connection 2027 (in construction) · planning ref FUL/2021/0375 |
| Huncoat Power Station - Battery Storage FacilityNewgen Limited | Battery | 45 MW | Refused by Burnley Council in 2024Who can move it: Burnley Council · planning ref FUL/2023/0785 |
| Coal Clough Wind Farm (Co-located)ScottishPower Renewables | Solar | 10 MW3,600 homes | Waiting 6.9 years for a planning decisionWho can move it: Burnley Council · planning ref FUL/2019/0470 |
Plus 1 smaller projects — see the full seat page.
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burnley | 1 MW | 38 MW | not visible |
| Calder Valley | 1.4 MW | 12 MW | not visible |
| Rossendale and Darwen | 0.3 MW | 75 MW | not visible |
| Hyndburn | 12 MW | 25 MW | not visible |
| Pendle and Clitheroe | 2.4 MW | 0 MW | not visible |
Hyndburn next door has 12 MW waiting, more than Burnley's 1 MW.
The rest of the briefing
- Every approval each project still needs, and which of them the public can see
- What building them would mean here — community payments, business rates and construction work
- Drafted parliamentary questions and letters, filled in with this seat's figures
- 3 story angles for local reporting
- A two-page PDF, and a newsroom edition with the references and who to call
Everything above needs no account, and neither does the full seat page, the method or this constituency's raw data. The account covers the packaged briefing and its PDF, and nothing else.