Solar panels for schools across Bedfordshire

The school estate in Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire has 274 open state-funded schools and colleges teaching 119,060 pupils, spread across 3 local authorities. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.

Of those, 205 primary, 54 secondary, 12 special and 3 further education. The phase mix is what sets the usable roof area across a county: secondary sites and colleges carry the sports halls, dining blocks and flat roofs, while primaries offer a hall and a teaching block each and suit arrays sized to the base load.

School rooftop solar and what a Bedfordshire roof models

Modelled yield is consistent across Bedfordshire, from 892 kWh per kWp a year at Leighton Buzzard to 902 at Biggleswade. At that spread, where the school stands is not what decides the scheme. The timetable is. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2.

Every town page below carries the same arithmetic for that town, including the share of the year that lands in July and August, which is the number a governing body should see before a saving figure.

Solar PV for academy trusts on the Bedfordshire planning record

The Renewable Energy Planning Database records 1 school and college solar scheme in Bedfordshire, at Bedford. It is Bedford School, De Parys Avenue, applied for by Bedford School. The median array applied for is 210 kWp.

We were not involved in that scheme. It is a public planning record, and it is here because what a local authority and a network operator have already accepted for one school is the best available guide to what they will accept for the next. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.

Connections across the county run through UK Power Networks. Anything above 3.68 kW per phase needs a G99 application, and on a school site the incoming supply and the size of the existing main switchboard are often the real constraint rather than the roof.