No.46 of 650 · approved, not built MP: Sir Gavin Williamson (Conservative) England

Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge

Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge has 125 MW of clean power (all solar) approved and still not built: enough to supply a year's electricity to 45,000 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, £3.5m across the constituency's 38,510 homes.

Not visible
here
No big wind farm on the national grid is mapped to this constituency, so no switch-off payments show here in national data. Smaller wind farms on the local grid can still be paid to switch off — invisibly. The £ figure for this seat is a floor, not a zero.
125 MW
of clean power — all solar — approved and still not built, enough to supply a year's electricity to 45,000 homes — about as many homes as this constituency has. Approved at least two years ago; waiting on the grid, not on planning. That is 21.6× the renewable capacity actually running here.
7 projects · planning database (REPD), July 2026 · how we worked this out
£3.5m
is what the grid gap costs this constituency's 38,510 households in a year between them — £92 each, about 51 days of one home's electricity.
The £92 per household is a national figure — identical in every GB seat. Only the seat total varies, with the number of households · NESO · how we worked this out

The waiting list

3 of 7 waiting projects · years since approval
Preston Hill Farm, Penkridge - Solar Farm 50 MW
2.5 YRS
Hanyards Lane, Tixall - Solar Energy Park 50 MW
2.1 YRS
Four Ashes, Deepmore Lane - Solar Farm 22 MW
2.0 YRS

Every approved, unbuilt project

approved 24+ months ago, still not generating · planning database, July 2026
SiteTechnologyEnough forCapacityApprovedWaiting
Preston Hill Farm, Penkridge - Solar FarmPreston Hill Farm Preston Vale PenkridgeSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.9 MW2024-022.5 yrs
Hanyards Lane, Tixall - Solar Energy ParkNorth Of Hanyards Lane TixallSolar Photovoltaics18,000 homes49.5 MW2024-062.1 yrs
Four Ashes, Deepmore Lane - Solar FarmS/O Four Ashes, Deepmore Lane, Coven, WolverhamptonSolar Photovoltaics8,200 homes22.5 MW2024-072.0 yrs
Acton Trussell - Solar SystemGranite One Hundred Acton Gate Acton TrussellSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.9 MW2022-074.1 yrs
Alpha Manufacturing, Pasturefields - Solar PV SystemAlpha Manufacturing, Pasturefields Industrial Estate, Pasturefields Lane, Pasturefields, StaffordSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.7 MW2022-074.1 yrs
Church Lane, Hixon - Solar PV PanelsBri Stor Systems Limited, Hixon Industrial Estate, Church Lane, HixonSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.7 MW2022-014.6 yrs
Pillaton Foods, Cannock Road - Solar PanelsPillaton Foods Ltd The Poultry Farm Cannock Road PenkridgeSolar Photovoltaics300 homes0.7 MW2024-042.3 yrs

Plus 7 more approved within the last two years.

Batteries

projects of 10 MW and above · planning database, July 2026 · what batteries do →
SiteSizeStatusWhile discharging
Oaklands Farm, New Road - Battery Energy Storage70 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈245,000 homes
Levedale Road, Levedale - Battery Energy Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈175,000 homes
Upper Latherford Farm, Latherford Lane - Battery Energy Storage System50 MWapproved, not built 2024could supply ≈175,000 homes
Hobble Lane, Great Wyrley - Battery Energy Storage50 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈175,000 homes
Chillington Estate, Chillington Park - Battery Storage40 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈140,000 homes
Lower Farm, Drointon Lane - Solar farm & Battery Energy Storage30 MWapproved, not built 2025could supply ≈105,000 homes
Yew Tree Farm, Drointon Lane30 MWcould supply ≈105,000 homes

What this page does not show

Smaller wind farms on the local grid are also switched off; national data does not show it, so the £ figure here is a floor, not a zero. Offshore wind is counted nationally, never per seat. The planning database can run a quarter behind reality.

Electricity does not travel from a particular project to particular houses. Everything generated goes into the national grid and everyone draws from that shared pool, so "enough for X homes" is a way of sizing the electricity — not a claim that these homes would be powered by this site. Battery storage is counted separately from generation: it moves power in time rather than making it.

Planning statuses come from the government's planning database (REPD), which records what was decided and when, but not why. Where a project was refused we say so and name the authority; for the reasons, look up the planning reference on that council's own register. How to check any figure on this page →

Read the full method, including everything we cannot see →

What has Sir Gavin Williamson said about the grid in Parliament? Search Hansard →

See the full league table Data (JSON)