Powered land
Sites near grid capacity in the United Kingdom
4,971 candidate sites of 27 to 2,648 ha within 2 km of a primary or bulk supply substation with headroom in the United Kingdom, ranked by a site score of area, distance to the substation and its demand headroom. The highest-scoring is the 108 ha site near Cirencester BSP substation, Cotswold, at 99 of 100.
By local authority
Each local authority page ranks all its sites.
- Barnsley96 · best 69
- Basingstoke and Deane143 · best 78
- Bassetlaw19 · best 61
- Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole23 · best 72
- Bracknell Forest33 · best 64
- Bradford63 · best 70
- Buckinghamshire115 · best 65
- Calderdale27 · best 76
- Chichester66 · best 76
- Cotswold122 · best 99
- County Durham307 · best 94
- Cumberland9 · best 55
- Darlington5 · best 37
- Derbyshire Dales7 · best 66
- Doncaster44 · best 69
- Dorset413 · best 75
- Ealing7 · best 42
- East Hampshire52 · best 73
- East Riding of Yorkshire280 · best 77
- Eastleigh9 · best 47
- Elmbridge1 · best 40
- Fareham4 · best 39
- Gateshead28 · best 77
- Guildford2 · best 51
- Hammersmith and Fulham1 · best 36
- Hart43 · best 79
- Hartlepool48 · best 71
- High Peak8 · best 69
- Hillingdon30 · best 51
- Horsham10 · best 51
- Hounslow15 · best 88
- Kensington and Chelsea1 · best 8
- Kingston upon Hull, City of7 · best 74
- Kirklees56 · best 62
- Leeds153 · best 89
- Middlesbrough6 · best 41
- New Forest118 · best 66
- Newcastle upon Tyne30 · best 72
- North East Derbyshire10 · best 53
- North Tyneside24 · best 64
- North Yorkshire524 · best 96
- Northumberland107 · best 78
- Oxford6 · best 43
- Pendle18 · best 59
- Reading4 · best 69
- Redcar and Cleveland51 · best 68
- Richmond upon Thames3 · best 34
- Rotherham103 · best 70
- Runnymede12 · best 63
- Rushmoor14 · best 66
- Sheffield34 · best 64
- Slough3 · best 30
- Somerset139 · best 66
- South Oxfordshire140 · best 75
- South Tyneside32 · best 74
- Southampton10 · best 84
- Spelthorne11 · best 66
- Stockton-on-Tees29 · best 88
- Sunderland62 · best 66
- Surrey Heath17 · best 75
- Swindon57 · best 97
- Test Valley109 · best 66
- Three Rivers6 · best 51
- Vale of White Horse50 · best 97
- Wakefield127 · best 87
- West Berkshire203 · best 88
- West Oxfordshire102 · best 68
- Wiltshire347 · best 98
- Winchester81 · best 90
- Windsor and Maidenhead66 · best 72
- Wokingham27 · best 86
- York42 · best 67
Top 100 sites in the United Kingdom
By site score; ties go to the larger site.
How the site score works in the United Kingdom
A site in the United Kingdom scores up to 100 points on 3 public facts: area, distance to the substation and its demand headroom. Each country's score uses what its grid operators publish, so scores compare sites within a country, not across countries. Each part is linear between its two ends or goes in steps, so the score is easy to check by hand. It ranks candidates for a closer look; it is not a valuation.
| Part | Points | Rule | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Area | 30 | 0 points at 5 ha, rising linearly to 30 points at 105 ha or more | Room for a data center campus, a battery park or industry; most need tens of hectares. |
| Distance to the substation | 30 | 30 points at the substation, falling linearly to 0 at 2 km | A short cable to the substation is cheaper and faster to build than a long one. |
| Demand headroom at the substation | 40 | 0 points with no headroom, rising linearly to 40 points at 40 MW or more | The capacity left for new demand (a data center, batteries charging, industry) decides whether a site connects without waiting for reinforcement. Where a network operator publishes MVA, an MVA counts as a MW. |
Not in the score in the United Kingdom
- Substation voltage. Primaries and bulk supply points run at 11 to 132 kV; the headroom says more about what can connect, so voltage is shown, not scored.
- Generation headroom. Shown on every site; not scored, since most uses for these sites draw power.
- Grid congestion. The headroom in MW measures it directly, so there is no congestion factor.
- Protected nature. We hold no protected-area layer for Great Britain yet.
Sites that touch their substation are ranked apart: most are the station's own land. Owner, zoning and permits are not in the score yet; see how sites are built.
How sites are built
HM Land Registry INSPIRE Index Polygons of 2 ha or more within 2 km of a primary or bulk supply substation that has demand or generation headroom on its network operator's heat map, measured from the polygon's edge to the substation's mapped point. Strips (roads, railways, rivers: a mean width under 25 m) and polygons with less than half their area on land are dropped. Each polygon is one site: the polygons carry no title numbers, so the polygons of one title are not joined, and adjacent titles have different owners. The largest sites are kept. A polygon shows where a title lies, not its legal extent: HM Land Registry notes that the extent of a title can only be established from the title plan. The polygons cover England and Wales. So far the sites lie in England, near substations of Northern Powergrid (Northeast) plc, Northern Powergrid (Yorkshire) plc and Southern Electric Power Distribution plc: the network operators whose capacity heat maps we hold with substation positions. 123 sites touch their substation and are ranked apart: most are the station's own land.
Sites in other countries
- Netherlands5,000
- Germany5,000
Data on this page
- This information is subject to Crown copyright and database rights 2026 and is reproduced with the permission of HM Land Registry. The polygons (including the associated geometry, namely x, y co-ordinates) are subject to Crown copyright and database rights 2026 Ordnance Survey AC0000851063. HM Land Registry INSPIRE Index Polygons, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Supported by Northern Powergrid Open Data. Northern Powergrid open data portal, Northern Powergrid Open Data Licence v1.0.
- Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. ONS Open Geography: Local Authority Districts, Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Rare Context. Rare Context powered-land sites, ODbL 1.0.
- SSEN Distribution. SSEN Distribution data portal, CC BY 4.0.