Is there enough sun around Maidenhead for this to be worth doing?

The model gives 905 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 250 kWp array comes out at roughly 226,300 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 743 square metres of clear roof once walkways and rooflight setbacks are allowed for. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

Does a Maidenhead school waste its generation in August?

25.6 percent of the modelled annual output for Maidenhead falls in July and August, when the buildings are closed for most of six weeks (EU PVGIS v5.2). It does not go to waste, but it only has three places to go: the base load that runs regardless, such as servers, catering refrigeration and ventilation; storage; or export under an agreement with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks. We model all three against your half hourly data before an array is sized.

Will the network around Maidenhead accept the export?

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks is the distribution network operator for Berkshire. Anything above 3.68 kW per phase connects under G99, and the application fixes the export limit. On a school site the incoming supply is often the binding constraint rather than the roof, so we ask that question before anyone sizes an array.

Is planning permission needed for panels on a school in Maidenhead?

Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from Windsor and Maidenhead needed above a capacity threshold. A ground mounted array in the grounds is a different question and much more likely to need a full application. We check both before design sign-off.

Has a school near SL6 already done this?

One school scheme is on record in this postcode district, including a 250 kWp array at Furze Platt Senior School, Furze Platt Road that holds consent and is awaiting construction. We were not involved in it. It is a public planning record, and it matters less as proof that solar works than as evidence of what this authority and this network operator have already accepted. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.

How many schools are there around Maidenhead?

Windsor and Maidenhead has 65 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 22,633 pupils on roll. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools. We survey across the whole of that area, and where a trust holds several sites we look at them in one pass.

Specialist solar panels for schools in Maidenhead

A 250 kWp array at Furze Platt Senior School, Furze Platt Road is the nearest school scheme on the planning record, and it holds consent and is awaiting construction. We arrange the roof survey, model the output against the school's own half hourly consumption, and set out the funding routes.

905 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 250 kWp array, the median size schools around Maidenhead have applied for, models at about 226,300 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

Book a roof survey in Maidenhead

1 teaching block
2 hall and kitchen
3 sports hall
4 1960s block, no array
first phase
later phase

Drawing Typical school site, Maidenhead scale

Blocks 4, 3 with array

Array about 345 kWp

Yield about 312,000 kWh/yr

Frontage about 90 m / Rev A / SL6

Illustrative layout for an estate of this size. The array is drawn at about 345 kWp, roughly 53 percent of the 650 kWp these three roofs would hold, because a school sizes to the load it can use in term time rather than to the roof it has: generation it cannot use is exported at a much lower rate than it pays to import. The hatched block carries no array because its structure has not been assessed, which on a school of that era is the usual starting point rather than an exception. Your own figures, and which of your blocks can take an array, come from the roof survey.

Maidenhead / Berkshire

A school on the edge of a Home Counties town, solar arrays on its roofs and wooded low hills beyond — School buildings of the kind we survey across South East. Not a named school and not our work.

Which schools around SL6 have applied

The Renewable Energy Planning Database records 1 school and college solar scheme in the SL6 postcode district. Furze Platt Senior School, Furze Platt Road applied for 250 kWp of roof mounted array, and that application holds consent and is awaiting construction. The applicant on record is Furze Platt Senior School.

None of these are ours. They are entries in the public planning record, reproduced here because a consented array at a school down the road is a better guide to your own prospects than any national average. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.

One thing to be clear about: the drawing at the head of this page is an illustrative estate, not Furze Platt Senior School, Furze Platt Road and not a survey of anyone's roof. What we know about the scheme above is only what the public planning record says.

The median array applied for here is 250 kWp. At 250 kWp you are covering roughly 743 square metres of roof once walkways, edge zones and rooflight setbacks come out, which on most sites means a sports hall plus one teaching block rather than the whole estate.

Site on record	Applicant on record	Size	Mounting	Status
Furze Platt Senior School, Furze Platt Road	Furze Platt Senior School	250 kWp	Roof	Awaiting Construction

Solar for education buildings across Berkshire

A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Maidenhead models at 905 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,162 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is roughly 2 percent above the mean across the towns we cover, so latitude is working slightly in your favour here.

Scaled up, a 250 kWp array, sized to the median array applied for at schools around Maidenhead itself, models at about 226,300 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 743 square metres of clear roof. That size is not one we chose. It is what schools in this district have actually applied for.

Spread across the year that is about 57,900 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 11,800 kWh across December and January. Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks sets what may go back onto the network here, so the July figure is the one worth putting in front of a governing body first.

FIG. 1 Maidenhead against the rest of Berkshire

Thatcham910
Reading907
Maidenhead905
Newbury904
Slough903
Windsor901
Wokingham898
Bracknell891

Maidenhead ranks 3 of 8 towns we cover in Berkshire on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 891 to 910, a spread of 19 kWh per kWp. Within Berkshire that difference is small enough to ignore: where the building sits is not what decides this scheme, your consumption pattern is.

Bars are zero based, so length is proportional to the figure. Where a county is flat, that is the finding: latitude is not the lever, the timetable is. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, modelled per town

Term dates against the Maidenhead generation curve

A Maidenhead school roof generates most in the weeks its buildings are closed. 25.6 percent of the modelled year lands in July and August alone (EU PVGIS v5.2), and the summer holiday takes roughly six of those nine weeks out of the timetable. June is the strongest single month here at 13.8 percent of the annual total, which is still term time, and that works slightly in your favour against towns whose curve peaks in July.

Winter reverses it. December and January between them return 5.2 percent of the modelled year, and that is when the heating, the lighting and a full register are all drawing at the same time. The roof makes 5.7 times as much in June as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 4.9 to one. 73 percent of the year arrives between April and September, and the point of that figure is not that the summer half goes unused, because April, May and June are full teaching months that draw hard. It is that the concentration peaks in the few weeks at the end of it when the building is shut.

Nationally this comes out at about 49 percent of annual generation falling on a session day. A business open every weekday sees roughly 71 percent. The 22 point gap is what a school appraisal has to absorb, and it is much the same in Maidenhead as anywhere else.

Daily shape compounds it. A school's load climbs from breakfast club, holds through the teaching day and falls away from about three in the afternoon, while generation is still strong until six in high summer. That is why we size against half hourly meter data rather than against annual consumption: the annual figure hides both problems.

The conclusion is not that a Maidenhead school should do nothing. It is that the array should be sized to the load that survives the holidays, which is usually the server room, the catering refrigeration, the ventilation and the hot water, plus whatever the site lets out over the summer. Anything above that line needs storage or an export agreement with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks to earn its keep.

We set out the complete version of the term time arithmetic on the home page, and what it does to a payback figure under costs.

FIG. 2 A Maidenhead roof against the English school year

generated while the school is open
generated at a weekend or in the holidays

The same figures as a table

Monthly output for a 1 kWp array in Maidenhead, split by whether the day is a school session day. Across the year 49 percent of generation lands while the school is open.
Month	Session days	Output, kWh per kWp	School open	School closed
Jan	20	25	16	9
Feb	15	39	21	18
Mar	21	73	49	24
Apr	12	105	42	63
May	17	120	66	54
Jun	21	125	88	38
Jul	11	125	44	81
Aug	0	107	0	107
Sep	20	83	55	28
Oct	17	52	29	23
Nov	21	30	21	9
Dec	15	22	11	11
Year	190	906	442	464

Output per kWp installed, split by whether the day is a session day. July and August are 25.6 percent of the Maidenhead year and the school is shut for most of them. Each month's total is spread evenly across its days, which is the only split available without half hourly readings. Session days follow a typical English school year of 190 days. Your own trust or authority may differ by a few days either way. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, session days from a typical school calendar

Windsor and Maidenhead schools, phase by phase

Windsor and Maidenhead has 65 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 22,633 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.

The split is 49 primary, 14 secondary and 2 special, at an average of 348 pupils a site. That is 3.5 primaries for every secondary, which is the ratio that matters for a roof: a primary of a few hundred pupils usually offers a hall roof and one teaching block, while a secondary site carries a sports hall, a dining block and several flat roofs.

If your trust holds several of them, the sequencing question comes before the sizing question. Roof age, covering type and the state of the incoming supply vary block by block across an estate, and that is normally what sets the order of works.

Aerial view of a school site with teaching blocks of several different ages, a sports hall and a playing field, solar arrays on two of the flat roofs — A school site with blocks of several ages, which is the usual starting point for a trust estate survey.

Grid connection through Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks

Connections around Maidenhead are handled by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, which sets the export limit for the site. Above 3.68 kW per phase the connection runs under G99, so the export limit is agreed in advance rather than assumed. Where the local network is constrained, an export-limited connection usually still makes the scheme work, because a school uses most of what the roof makes during the working day.

Across Berkshire the planning database records 83 solar schemes totalling 317 MW, of which 8 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).

Book the survey

Book a roof survey at your Maidenhead school

Lenzie Consulting Ltd arranges roof surveys for schools across Berkshire. Send the school postcode and a rough idea of the roof area, and the last twelve months of half hourly meter data if the school holds it. We come back with what the roofs can carry, what they would generate against your own consumption, and the funding routes open to a school.

Lenzie Consulting Ltd arranges the survey and passes your details to an MCS-certified installation partner so they can quote. We do not carry out the installation ourselves.

Maidenhead school solar, answered

Is there enough sun around Maidenhead for this to be worth doing?: The model gives 905 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 250 kWp array comes out at roughly 226,300 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 743 square metres of clear roof once walkways and rooflight setbacks are allowed for. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Does a Maidenhead school waste its generation in August?: 25.6 percent of the modelled annual output for Maidenhead falls in July and August, when the buildings are closed for most of six weeks (EU PVGIS v5.2). It does not go to waste, but it only has three places to go: the base load that runs regardless, such as servers, catering refrigeration and ventilation; storage; or export under an agreement with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks. We model all three against your half hourly data before an array is sized.
Will the network around Maidenhead accept the export?: Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks is the distribution network operator for Berkshire. Anything above 3.68 kW per phase connects under G99, and the application fixes the export limit. On a school site the incoming supply is often the binding constraint rather than the roof, so we ask that question before anyone sizes an array.
Is planning permission needed for panels on a school in Maidenhead?: Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from Windsor and Maidenhead needed above a capacity threshold. A ground mounted array in the grounds is a different question and much more likely to need a full application. We check both before design sign-off.
Has a school near SL6 already done this?: One school scheme is on record in this postcode district, including a 250 kWp array at Furze Platt Senior School, Furze Platt Road that holds consent and is awaiting construction. We were not involved in it. It is a public planning record, and it matters less as proof that solar works than as evidence of what this authority and this network operator have already accepted. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
How many schools are there around Maidenhead?: Windsor and Maidenhead has 65 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 22,633 pupils on roll. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools. We survey across the whole of that area, and where a trust holds several sites we look at them in one pass.

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