South West Norfolk
South West Norfolk has 1.5 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 500 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, £4.1m across the constituency's 44,218 homes. There is also 22 MW of wind running here on the local network. If that gets switched off, no national record shows it.
Ranks 374 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Droves Solar FarmIsland Green Power | Solar | 500 MW182,000 homes | Applied in 2025, still waiting for a decisionWho can move it: the Planning Inspectorate (it decides nationally significant projects) · planning ref EN0110013 |
| High Road, Saddlebow - Battery StorageLynn Power Limited | Battery | 50 MW | Approved 2 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 22/01151/FM |
| Woodlands Farm - Solar ArrayElgin Energy EsCo 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 DC/22/01530 |
| Green Lane Solar Park - Solar PV PanelsSky UK Development Limited | Solar | 15 MW5,400 homes | Approved less than a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref 25/01068/FM |
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| South West Norfolk | 1.5 MW | 69 MW | not visible |
| North East Cambridgeshire | 2.9 MW | 156 MW | not visible |
| West Suffolk | 502 MW | 94 MW | not visible |
| Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket | 52 MW | 14 MW | not visible |
| Ely and East Cambridgeshire | 145 MW | 257 MW | not visible |
| Waveney Valley | 59 MW | 64 MW | not visible |
West Suffolk next door has 502 MW waiting, more than South West Norfolk's 1.5 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.