Livingston
Livingston has 118 MW of clean power (mostly onshore wind) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 91,000 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, £4.1m across the constituency's 44,193 homes. There is also 64 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.
Ranks 51 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learielaw Farm, Learielaw - Battery Energy StorageIntelligent Land Investments Group | Battery | 100 MW | Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref ECU00004983 |
| Drumshoreland Road Battery Storage FacilitySirius Renewables | Battery | 50 MW | Approved 4 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 0255/FUL/22 |
| Longhill Burn Wind FarmEnergieKontor UK | Onshore wind | 46 MW40,000 homes | Its grid connection date of 2022 has passed and it is still not generatingWho can move it: the grid operator (NESO) and SP Transmission · earliest connection 2022 · planning ref 0359/FUL/19 |
| Gladsmuir Hills - Wind FarmWind Estate (UK) Ltd | Onshore wind | 41 MW36,000 homes | Cannot connect to the grid until 2032, 7 years after it was approvedWho can move it: the grid operator (NESO) and SP Transmission · earliest connection 2032 · planning ref 0706/FUL/22 |
| Leyden Road - Solar ArrayTrio Power Limited | Solar | 40 MW15,000 homes | Applied in 2025, still waiting for a decisionWho can move it: West Lothian Council · planning ref 0998/FUL/25 |
| Drumcross Battery StorageMuirhall Energy | Battery | 30 MW | Its grid connection date of 2024 has passed and it is still not generatingWho can move it: the grid operator (NESO) and SP Transmission · earliest connection 2024 · planning ref 0114/FUL/18 |
| Camilty Plantation - Wind FarmEDF Energy Renewables | Onshore wind | 26 MW23,000 homes | Approved 5 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 0320/FUL/21 |
| Selms Muir - Solar FarmRenewable Connections | Solar | 18 MW6,500 homes | Approved 4 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 0442/FUL/22 |
| Pearie Law 2 - Wind turbinesWind Estate (UK) Ltd | Onshore wind | 14 MW13,000 homes | Approved 5 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 0124/FUL/21 |
| Leyden Road - Battery Energy StorageTrio Power Limited | Battery | 9 MW | Applied in 2025, still waiting for a decisionWho can move it: West Lothian Council · planning ref 0998/FUL/25 |
| Tormywheel Wind Farm ExtensionMuirhall Energy | Onshore wind | 5 MW4,400 homes | Approved 6 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref LIVE/0226/FUL/17 |
Plus 5 smaller projects — see the full seat page.
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Livingston | 118 MW | 116 MW | not visible |
| Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale | 913 MW | 1,451 MW | £15m |
| Edinburgh South West | 0 MW | 0 MW | not visible |
| Bathgate and Linlithgow | 46 MW | 9.8 MW | not visible |
| Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke | 80 MW | 215 MW | £2.4m |
| Airdrie and Shotts | 24 MW | 82 MW | £2.3m |
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale next door has 913 MW waiting, more than Livingston's 118 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.