Solar panels for schools across Bristol

The school estate in Bristol

Bristol has 231 open state-funded schools and colleges teaching 89,574 pupils, spread across 2 local authorities. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.

Of those, 177 primary, 38 secondary, 12 special and 4 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 Bristol roof models

Modelled yield is consistent across Bristol, from 895 kWh per kWp a year at Filton to 908 at Bishopston. 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 Bristol planning record

The Renewable Energy Planning Database records 1 school and college solar scheme in Bristol, at Keynsham. It is Wellsway School, Chandag Road, applied for by Bath & West Community Energy. The median array applied for is 150 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 National Grid Electricity Distribution. 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.