Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare
Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare has 10 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 3,700 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, £4.0m across the constituency's 43,830 homes. There is also 22 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.
Ranks 227 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cefn Farm, Mount Road - Battery Energy Storage SystemTec Marina | Battery | 200 MW | Waiting 15 months for a planning decisionWho can move it: Rhondda Cynon Taf Council · planning ref 25/0536/FUL |
| Rhigos Road - Solar FarmRegener8 Power / Environmena | Solar | 9.9 MW3,600 homes | Under constructionWho can move it: the developer · earliest connection 2027 (in construction) · planning ref 23/0820/10 |
| Pengarnddu Industrial Estate, Dowlais - Hydrogen Electrolyser Plant FacilityConrad Energy (Developments) Limited | Hydrogen | 8 MW | Approved less than a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref P/24/0196 |
| Pen Y Dre High School, Goitre Lane - Solar PanelsMerthyr Tydfil County Borough Council | Solar | 1.4 MW500 homes | Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref P/25/0044 |
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare | 10 MW | 31 MW | not visible |
| Aberafan Maesteg | 37 MW | 313 MW | £470k |
| Neath and Swansea East | 27 MW | 58 MW | not visible |
| Pontypridd | 41 MW | 42 MW | not visible |
| Caerphilly | 20 MW | 32 MW | not visible |
| Rhondda and Ogmore | 81 MW | 114 MW | not visible |
Rhondda and Ogmore next door has 81 MW waiting, more than Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare's 10 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.