Glenrothes and Mid Fife
Glenrothes and Mid Fife has 121 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 44,000 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, £3.9m across the constituency's 42,861 homes. There is also 38 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.
Ranks 49 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Former Fife Power Station - Battery Energy Storage SystemFife Power 1 Ltd | Battery | 100 MW | Waiting 18 months for a planning decisionWho can move it: the Scottish Government (it decides big energy projects) · planning ref ECU00005188 |
| Roaring Hill, Whinnyknowe - Battery Energy Storage SystemELM Power Limited | Battery | 60 MW | Waiting 12 months for a planning decisionWho can move it: the Scottish Government (it decides big energy projects) · planning ref ECU00005104 |
| Wemyss Estate - Randolph Solar Farm & Battery Energy StorageElgin Energy | Solar | 50 MW18,000 homes | Approved 4 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref ECU00002222 |
| Wester Balbeggie Farm, Balbeggie Avenue - Battery StorageRelay Balbeggie Limited | Battery | 49 MW | Approved 3 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 23/00701/FULL |
| Ballingall Farm, Leslie - Battery Energy Storage SystemEcoDev Group Limited | Battery | 43 MW | Approved 3 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 23/00971/FULL |
| Westfield Solar Farm & BatteryBrockwell Energy Limited | Solar | 30 MW11,000 homes | Its grid connection date of 2025 has passed and it is still not generatingWho can move it: the grid operator (NESO) and SP Transmission · earliest connection 2025 · planning ref 20/02221/ARC |
| Strathruddie, Kinglassie - Solar farmRenewable Connection Developments Limited | Solar | 25 MW9,100 homes | Approved 4 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 21/03531/FULL |
| Wemyss Estate - Randolph Solar Farm & Battery Energy StorageElgin Energy | Battery | 25 MW | Approved 4 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref ECU00002222 |
| Westfield (former Opencast Coal Mine)Brockwell Energy | EfW Incineration | 24 MW | Under constructionWho can move it: the developer · earliest connection 2027 (in construction) · planning ref 18/02342/ARC |
| Westfield Solar Farm & BatteryBrockwell Energy Limited | Battery | 20 MW | Cannot connect to the grid until 2026, 5 years after it was approvedWho can move it: the grid operator (NESO) and SP Transmission · earliest connection 2026 · planning ref 20/02221/ARC |
| Strathruddie, Kinglassie - Solar farmRenewable Connection Developments Limited | Battery | 20 MW | Approved 4 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 21/03531/FULL |
| Land North of Thornton RoadSouth Redhouse | Battery | 20 MW | Approved 10 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 15/04010/FULL |
Plus 4 smaller projects — see the full seat page.
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Glenrothes and Mid Fife | 121 MW | 48 MW | not visible |
| Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy | 70 MW | 39 MW | not visible |
| Dunfermline and Dollar | 36 MW | 5.1 MW | not visible |
| North East Fife | 21 MW | 7.1 MW | not visible |
| Perth and Kinross-shire | 43 MW | 44 MW | not visible |
Glenrothes and Mid Fife has more approved-and-waiting capacity than any of its neighbouring seats.
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.