Enter a UK postcode to explore openly mapped data centres, major electricity infrastructure, planning activity and public-support evidence around that area. Grid Watch is a discovery and investigation tool: a map marker is a starting point for checking the evidence, not proof that different sites are connected.
Have something you think The Scouse Oracle should look into? Suggestions on any topic are welcome. Share your lead and any supporting sources.
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My resources include template letters, MP correspondence, consultation questions and evidence packs designed to help you ask better questions, request records and challenge decisions using the democratic tools available to you.
Grid Watch is free to use and built as a public-interest project. If this map or the wider research helps you follow what is being built, who owns it and how it connects to public infrastructure, you can directly support the time, research and upkeep needed to keep it growing and openly available.
GENERATE → STORE → CONNECT → TRANSMIT → CONSUME
Five roles in one shared network. The arrows explain the categories; they are not a traced supply route. Batteries charge and discharge, and electricity does not have to pass through storage.
Search any UK postcode: this layer covers England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland within the same 45 km search area. Dashed features are proposed or under construction; faded features are closed or inactive. Coverage varies by source.
DESNZ Renewable Energy Planning Database supplies solar, wind and battery project records with reported development status. Its quarterly extract tracks projects above 150 kW; older small projects and unreported schemes may be absent. Installed MW is neither battery energy capacity in MWh nor measured output.
OpenStreetMap supplies nuclear sites and mapped high-voltage routes, alongside the existing substation and data-centre layers. Community tags do not independently verify operation. High-voltage routes may include distribution infrastructure. Lines show mapped geometry, not electricity flowing to a named consumer.
Each record links to its source and retrieval date. Multiple records may describe the same site or different segments of one route. Other major consumers are not comprehensively mapped. An empty category does not establish absence. The national snapshot is refreshed weekly when all four nations pass validation; underlying sources may be older.
Nearby does not mean connected. A planning document, connection agreement or power-purchase agreement must explicitly support a relationship before Grid Watch claims one. Even a commercial agreement does not trace the physical electricity. MW capacity is not continuous output or measured consumption.
Electricity-system view is off. The original map is shown.
Start at TN29 9PX for Romney Marsh / Dungeness and Sellindge. Search CT12 4EA for Minster / Richborough and Canterbury. The map keeps the existing 45 km search area.
The Kent example remains part of the national layer. Source links below provide additional context for Romney Marsh, Dungeness, Sellindge, Minster, Richborough and Canterbury.
Solar proposals to investigate: South Kent Energy Park · Shepway Energy Park. These council pages are reading leads, not imported open-licensed project records. Proposed boundaries and battery capacities are not guessed.
Sea Link project and route documents · Richborough battery connection evidence. Read these primary sources to investigate specific infrastructure relationships; neither establishes supply to a data centre.
Additional Kent records were checked on 11 September 2026 and require periodic review. Other major consumers are not comprehensively mapped. An empty CONSUME category does not mean there is no local demand.
These are substations, not data centres. Grid Watch maps 132 kV+ substations near your postcode. Proximity does not prove a data centre is connected to a particular substation.
Strict open-data policy: the v2 automated database ingests only data with an explicit open licence or public-domain dedication. It does not wholesale-copy commercial data-centre directories, paywalled databases or council registers whose reuse terms have not been verified.
OpenStreetMap: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Community mapping can be incomplete or wrong. Data-centre and 132 kV+ substation layers refresh automatically.
Ownership: Wikidata CC0 is used only where an OSM record contains an explicit Wikidata identifier. Parent-company links are open linked data, not a claim that Wikidata is legally authoritative.
Planning: England and Northern Ireland are currently collected from explicitly OGL datasets. Scotland's official dataset is also OGL, but its automated download is access-key gated unless configured. Wales remains a declared national planning-data gap under this strict policy. A filing is evidence of an application, not evidence of construction or operation.
Public support & incentives: programme-level policy is sourced from official OGL government publications. Grid Watch does not infer that a particular project received a subsidy, tax relief, planning advantage or grid priority merely because it is nearby or potentially eligible. Project-level support will only be labelled when an open source explicitly establishes it.
Power: numbers found in open planning descriptions are shown as text mentions until their meaning is established. Connected, contracted, proposed and estimated values are not interchangeable.
Site investigations: expand Power, Water, Money / Public Support, Planning or Ownership from any data-centre result. The evidence profile counts only areas with site-linked evidence, not risk or impact. “No open evidence found” means no suitable link in the loaded Grid Watch records, not proof of absence. General water and public-support evidence remains separate from site claims.
Completeness: open-data-only does not mean a complete market register. No single statutory UK dataset lists every private, edge, enterprise, operating and proposed data centre. Grid Watch publishes coverage gaps rather than inventing certainty.
Locations: distances are approximate and postcodes are geocoded using postcodes.io. Full methodology and source licences are documented in the repository.