Methodology and sources

Solar farms, onshore and offshore wind farms and battery storage sites planned, approved, built or refused near every UK postcode district, with each project's planning stage, key dates and how often the local council (or the Energy Secretary) says yes. Built from the government's Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD).

What the pages show

• Projects are records of the Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD), published quarterly by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. We use solar photovoltaics, onshore wind, battery storage and offshore wind. REPD covers projects of about 150 kW and above (1 MW before 2021), so household rooftop panels are not included.
• Near a postcode district means within 10 km in a straight line of the average position of the district's live postcodes (ONS Postcode Directory, August 2026). The distance is from that centre, not from a particular home.
• Status is REPD's development status. Records marked “revised” (replaced by a new application for the same scheme) are not counted twice: they appear as earlier applications on the project page.
• Record last updated is REPD's own date for each record. Applications shown as pending that were submitted more than two years ago are marked “may be out of date”.
• Council is the local authority district where the project's REPD grid reference lies (nearest postcode). Decisions are counted by the planning authority named in REPD; an authority is matched to a council when most of its projects lie there. National decision makers (Scottish Government under Section 36, the Planning Inspectorate for nationally significant projects, the Welsh Government) are shown separately.
• Refusal rate = applications with a refusal date ÷ applications with a grant or refusal date. We show it for a council from 10 decisions. Appeals are counted separately.
• Project pages exist for schemes of 5 MW and more that are not superseded by a revised application. Pages of refused, withdrawn, abandoned or expired schemes under 20 MW whose record was last updated in 2016 or earlier stay on the site and in the tables but are not offered to search engines.
• Offshore wind projects come from the same database (technology “Wind Offshore”). Each district page lists the operational, approved and pending offshore wind farms whose REPD grid reference is within 40 km of the district centre. REPD gives one point per wind farm; where that point lies within 1 km of a postcode on land it is the coast (usually the onshore connection), so the project is not listed for districts and no distance out to sea is given. “km from land” is the straight-line distance from the REPD point to the nearest postcode.
• Energy Secretary decisions are applications whose planning authority in REPD is the Planning Inspectorate (nationally significant infrastructure). Records with the same Planning Inspectorate reference (a solar farm and its battery, two phases of a wind farm) count as one decision; the decision is a grant if REPD records a grant date, otherwise a refusal if it records a refusal date.
• Place names of postcode districts: in England and Wales the most common post town in HM Land Registry sales; in Scotland the most common populated place of the district's postcodes in OS Open Names; in Northern Ireland the NISRA 2015 settlement that contains most of the district's residential postcodes.

Known limits

• REPD is compiled from planning portals and developers; dates can lag behind council decisions, and some small schemes approved years ago still show “awaiting construction” although they may have been built.
• Northern Ireland grid references in REPD use the British National Grid, like the rest of the UK (checked against project postcodes).
• About 7% of projects lie on the boundary between councils and may be shown in the neighbouring council area.

Sources and licences