Solar panels for schools across Berkshire

The school estate in Berkshire

Berkshire has 364 open state-funded schools and colleges teaching 152,145 pupils, spread across 6 local authorities. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.

Of those, 281 primary, 67 secondary, 14 special and 2 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 Berkshire roof models

Modelled yield is consistent across Berkshire, from 891 kWh per kWp a year at Bracknell to 910 at Thatcham. 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 Berkshire planning record

The Renewable Energy Planning Database records 5 school and college solar schemes in Berkshire, across 4 of the towns we cover. They include Furze Platt Senior School, Furze Platt Road at Maidenhead, Mary Hare School, Wantage Road at Newbury and St Johns Beaumont School, Priest Hill at Windsor. The median array applied for is 260 kWp.

We were not involved in any of those schemes. They are public planning records, and they are 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 Scottish and Southern Electricity 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.