Penrith and Solway
Penrith and Solway has 4.7 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 1,700 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 43,873 homes. There is also 50 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.
Ranks 267 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| West Farm, Aspatria - Battery Storage FacilityNet Zero Seventeen Limited | Battery | 50 MW | Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref FUL/2024/0085 |
| High Rigg Solar Farm - Solar PanelsNoventum Power Limited | Solar | 30 MW11,000 homes | Refused by Westmorland and Furness Council in 2026Who can move it: Westmorland and Furness Council · planning ref 2025/1267/FPA |
| Ewanrigg Farmhouse, Ewanrigg - Solar FarmAnesco Limited | Solar | 13 MW4,700 homes | Approved less than a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref FUL/2025/0080 |
| Former Broughton Lodge ResubmissionPeel Energy | Onshore wind | 9 MW7,900 homes | Nothing published says what is holding this up · planning ref 2/2009/0880 |
| Roxane UK, Armathwaite - Solar Array & Battery StorageRoxane UK Limited | Solar | 5 MW1,800 homes | Approved less than a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 2025/1585/FPA |
Plus 2 smaller projects — see the full seat page.
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Penrith and Solway | 4.7 MW | 92 MW | not visible |
| Bishop Auckland | 52 MW | 8 MW | not visible |
| Hexham | 23 MW | 56 MW | not visible |
| Barrow and Furness | 5.5 MW | 38 MW | not visible |
| Whitehaven and Workington | 1.2 MW | 64 MW | not visible |
| Westmorland and Lonsdale | 5.3 MW | 26 MW | not visible |
Bishop Auckland next door has 52 MW waiting, more than Penrith and Solway's 4.7 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.