Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke
Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke was paid £2.4m last year to switch off its wind farms, because the wires south were full. That would cover every local household's electricity for 30 days. A further 80 MW of approved clean power (all onshore wind) is still waiting to be built here: enough to supply a year's electricity to 70,000 homes.
Ranks 84 of 650 for clean power approved and not built; 13 of 19 among seats with visible switch-off payments.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heathland Wind FarmEDF Energy Renewables | Onshore wind | 80 MW70,000 homes | Cannot connect to the grid until 2028, 6 years after it was approvedWho can move it: the grid operator (NESO) and SP Transmission · earliest connection 2028 · planning ref ECU00002218 |
| Woolfords Farm - Onshore Wind TurbinesWoolffords Wind Energy Limited | Onshore wind | 20 MW17,000 homes | Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref P/22/0031 |
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke | 80 MW | 215 MW | £2.4m |
| Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale | 913 MW | 1,451 MW | £15m |
| Livingston | 118 MW | 116 MW | not visible |
| Hamilton and Clyde Valley | 2.1 MW | 61 MW | £170k |
| Airdrie and Shotts | 24 MW | 82 MW | £2.3m |
| Coatbridge and Bellshill | 0.6 MW | 0.2 MW | not visible |
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale next door has 913 MW waiting, more than Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke's 80 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.