Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor
Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor has 47 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 17,000 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, £4.0m across the constituency's 43,513 homes. There is also 45 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.
Ranks 148 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spennymoor Greener Grid ParkStatkraft UK Limited | Battery | 200 MW | Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref DM/23/00745/FPA |
| South Thinford Lane, Thinford - Energy StorageRenewable Energy Systems Limited | Battery | 100 MW | Approved 4 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref DM/22/00120/FPA |
| Croxdale Farms, Hett Moor Farm - Solar FarmLightsource SPV 189 Limited | Solar | 50 MW18,000 homes | Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref DM/23/01868/FPA |
| West House Farm, Fishburn - Solar FarmVoltis Renewables | Solar | 41 MW15,000 homes | Approved 2 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref DM/22/03757/FPA |
| Low Raisby Farm, Kelloe - Solar PanelsABEI Energy Green II | Solar | 25 MW9,200 homes | Applied in 2026, still waiting for a decisionWho can move it: County Durham Council · planning ref DM/26/00070/FPA |
Plus 4 smaller projects — see the full seat page.
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor | 47 MW | 45 MW | not visible |
| Stockton West | 161 MW | 36 MW | not visible |
| Darlington | 84 MW | 6.2 MW | not visible |
| City of Durham | 1.1 MW | 34 MW | not visible |
| Easington | 102 MW | 33 MW | not visible |
| Bishop Auckland | 52 MW | 8 MW | not visible |
Stockton West next door has 161 MW waiting, more than Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor's 47 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.