St Austell and Newquay
St Austell and Newquay has 11 MW of clean power (almost all onshore wind) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 8,900 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 43,478 homes.
Ranks 222 of 650 for clean power approved and not built.
What is stuck, and why
| Project and developer | Tech | Size | Why it is stuck |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indian Queens National Grid Substation, Domelick Hill - Battery StorageEDF Energy Renewables (merged with Pivot Power) | Battery | 50 MW | Approved 2 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref PA23/06527 |
| Indian Queens Sub station, Carne Hill - Battery Energy StorageRenewable Connections Development Limited | Battery | 50 MW | Approved 3 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref PA23/04504 |
| Green Acres Farm, Scarcewater - Solar FarmEDF Renewables | Solar | 50 MW18,000 homes | Waiting 24 months for a planning decisionWho can move it: Cornwall Council · planning ref PA24/05312 |
| Burthy Row Farm, Trefullock Moor - Solar Farm & Battery StorageJBM Solar Projects Limited | Solar | 50 MW18,000 homes | Waiting 3.4 years for a planning decisionWho can move it: Cornwall Council · planning ref PA23/01893 |
| Indian Queens Sub-Station - Battery StoragePrime Energy Development Limited / Valero Energy / Sambar Power | Battery | 48 MW | Cannot connect to the grid until 2027, 5 years after it was approvedWho can move it: the grid operator (NESO) and National Grid · earliest connection 2027 · planning ref PA22/05961 |
| Menear Road - Solar & Battery storageAnesco Limited | Solar | 18 MW6,400 homes | Approved less than a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref PA23/09532 |
| Mount Stamper Road, Treverbyn - Battery Energy StorageAldustria Energy Storage | Battery | 10 MW | Approved 2 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref PA24/01713 |
| Eden Project Geothermal Energy FacilityEGS Energy/Eden Project Limited | Hot Dry Rocks (HDR) | 7 MW | Under constructionWho can move it: the developer · earliest connection 2027 (in construction) · planning ref PA10/04671 |
| Tregorrick FarmE H Energy Limited | Solar | 6 MW2,200 homes | Refused by Cornwall Council in 2023Who can move it: the planning appeal inspector · planning ref PA20/11504 |
| Eden ProjectGood Energy | Battery | 5 MW | Approved 7 years ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref PA19/03137 |
| Menear Road - Solar & Battery storageAnesco Limited | Battery | 5 MW | Approved less than a year ago — nothing has happened sinceWho can move it: the developer and the network company · planning ref PA23/09532 |
Plus 6 smaller projects — see the full seat page.
Compared with its neighbours
| Constituency | Approved, not built | Running | Paid to switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| St Austell and Newquay | 11 MW | 96 MW | not visible |
| Truro and Falmouth | 80 MW | 99 MW | not visible |
| South East Cornwall | 1.9 MW | 119 MW | not visible |
| North Cornwall | 10 MW | 197 MW | not visible |
Truro and Falmouth next door has 80 MW waiting, more than St Austell and Newquay's 11 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
- 2 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.