North East Fife
North East Fife has 21 MW of clean power (mostly onshore wind) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 14,000 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, £3.8m across the constituency's 40,975 homes.
Ranks 196 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| FerrymuirGore Street Energy Storage Fund | Battery | 50 MW | 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 19/02750/FULL |
| West Springfield Solar Farm - Solar Panels & BESSBLC Energy | Solar | 50 MW18,000 homes | Waiting 16 months for a planning decisionWho can move it: the Scottish Government (it decides big energy projects) · planning ref ECU00006134 |
| Duniface Gas Peaking Plant - Battery Energy Storage SystemForsa Energy Gas Holdings Limited | Battery | 50 MW | Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 24/00713/FULL |
| West Springfield Solar Farm - Solar Panels & BESSBLC Energy | Battery | 35 MW | Waiting 16 months for a planning decisionWho can move it: the Scottish Government (it decides big energy projects) · planning ref ECU00006134 |
| Over Rankeilour Farm - Solar FarmBalance Power Projects Limited | Solar | 30 MW11,000 homes | Waiting 14 months for a planning decisionWho can move it: Fife Council · earliest connection 2026 · planning ref 25/01330/FULL |
| Fife Tractors, Drum Road - Battery Energy StorageDowning Renewable Developments | Battery | 12 MW | Refused by Fife Council in 2025Who can move it: Fife Council · planning ref 24/01082/FULL |
| Kenly Wind FarmUniversity of St Andrews | Onshore wind | 12 MW11,000 homes | Approved 10 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 16/01425/EIA |
Plus 2 smaller projects — see the full seat page.
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| North East Fife | 21 MW | 7.1 MW | not visible |
| Glenrothes and Mid Fife | 121 MW | 48 MW | not visible |
| Perth and Kinross-shire | 43 MW | 44 MW | not visible |
Glenrothes and Mid Fife next door has 121 MW waiting, more than North East Fife's 21 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.