South Northamptonshire
South Northamptonshire has 104 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 38,000 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, £3.9m across the constituency's 42,076 homes. A 50 MW battery was refused planning here in 2025; while discharging it could have supplied about 175,000 homes.
Ranks 62 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vicarage Farm - Battery Energy Storage SystemEnray Power Limited | Battery | 50 MW | Refused by North Northamptonshire Council in 2025Who can move it: North Northamptonshire Council · planning ref NW/25/00405/FUL |
| Grendon Lakes, Grendon - Battery Storage FacilityStatera Energy | Battery | 50 MW | Approved a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref NW/23/00360/FUL |
| Halse Road - Solar Farm & Battery StorageJBM Solar Projects Limited | Solar | 50 MW18,000 homes | Approved 3 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref WNS/2022/0557/EIA |
| Milton Road, Gayton - Solar FarmAnesco Limited | Solar | 46 MW17,000 homes | Waiting 13 months for a planning decisionWho can move it: West Northamptonshire Council · planning ref 2025/3011/EIA |
| Yardley Road Solar FarmSolar 2 Limited | Solar | 40 MW15,000 homes | Waiting 13 months for a planning decisionWho can move it: West Northamptonshire Council · planning ref 2025/2767/MAF |
| Manor Farm, Whitfield - Solar PanelsElgin Energy Esco Ltd | Solar | 30 MW11,000 homes | Waiting 19 months for a planning decisionWho can move it: West Northamptonshire Council · planning ref 2025/0018/MAF |
| Welsh LaneLow Carbon | Solar | 30 MW11,000 homes | Approved 5 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref WNS/2021/0498/EIA |
| Preston, Deanery - Solar FarmGrange Farm Partnership | Solar | 28 MW10,000 homes | Waiting 2.8 years for a planning decisionWho can move it: West Northamptonshire Council · planning ref 2023/7911/MAF |
| Primrose Hill Farm, Oxford Road - Solar FarmMespil Solar Energy | Solar | 24 MW8,700 homes | Waiting 15 months for a planning decisionWho can move it: West Northamptonshire Council · planning ref 2025/2088/MAF |
| Sparrow Lodge FarmElgin Energy | Solar | 20 MW7,300 homes | Approved 5 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref S/2019/2270/MAF |
| Silver Spinney FarmThrive Renewables | Battery | 5 MW | Under constructionWho can move it: the developer · earliest connection 2027 (in construction) · planning ref S/2019/0086/FUL |
Plus 1 smaller projects — see the full seat page.
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Northamptonshire | 104 MW | 85 MW | not visible |
| Banbury | 10 MW | 20 MW | not visible |
| Bicester and Woodstock | 112 MW | 80 MW | not visible |
| Buckingham and Bletchley | 130 MW | 60 MW | not visible |
| Northampton South | 0.9 MW | 10 MW | not visible |
| Daventry | 130 MW | 77 MW | not visible |
Daventry next door has 130 MW waiting, more than South Northamptonshire's 104 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.