To find out what is being built, or is about to be built, near your home, you only need the first half of your postcode: the site will show every solar, wind and battery project of 150 kW or more within a 10 km radius, along with its capacity, stage and when the record was last updated. One source underpins all of this: the Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD), run by DESNZ, the government's energy department, in its July 2026 extract. Nearly half of the projects in the register are already approved but not yet operational, so an empty field on the edge of town may well turn out to be a site with live permission.
Contents
↓ Large projects decided nationally↓ Largest applications awaiting a decision
How to find projects near your postcode district
Take district GL5: after a search you get a page listing every project within 10 km. Each one carries a stage: application submitted and awaiting a decision; approved, not built; under construction; operational; or refused, application withdrawn or permission expired. Look separately at the date the record was last updated: it tells you how fresh the stage is.
How many projects are in the register, and what kind
The July 2026 extract holds 12,121 projects: 7,115 solar farms, 2,506 onshore wind farms and 2,500 battery storage sites (BESS). The breakdown by country sits on separate pages: England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland.
How applications end up
Councils, as the local planning authority, refuse applications at very different rates depending on the technology. Of the decided applications, 45% of onshore wind projects were refused, 12% of solar and 16% of battery storage. Treat the “awaiting a decision” status with care: 32% of those applications were submitted more than two years ago, and only 37% of records were updated in the last 12 months.
The largest projects and who decides them
The biggest applications are batteries, up to 1,000 MW. Large projects are decided by government: in England by the Energy Secretary through a development consent order (DCO); in Scotland by Scottish Ministers under Section 36 (projects over 50 MW); in Wales by the Welsh Government. Example: Botley West Solar Project in West Oxfordshire, at 840 MW, submitted in November 2024 and, according to the July 2026 extract, still awaiting a decision from the Secretary of State. All 55 ministerial decisions, 95% of them approvals, are collected on the Energy Secretary decisions page.
Offshore wind farms
Offshore wind is tracked separately in the register: 109 projects, of which 49 are operational. The list and the stages sit on the offshore wind page.
The short version
A search by postcode district gives you every project of 150 kW or more within 10 km, with its stage and record date. The register holds 12,121 projects, more than half of them solar. Onshore wind is refused most often (45% of decided applications), solar least often (12%). Government decides the large projects; the council decides the rest. Statuses and dates come from the REPD extract for July 2026: the register can lag behind decisions, and decisions taken after the extract are not shown on the site.