Specialist solar panels for schools in Ely

Which schools around CB6 have applied

The Renewable Energy Planning Database records 1 school and college solar scheme in the CB6 postcode district. A secondary school, The Harbour School, Station Road, applied for 900 kWp roof mounted and the scheme holds consent and is awaiting construction. The applicant on record is Cambridge Meridian Academies Trust.

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 The Harbour School, Station 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 900 kWp. At 900 kWp you are covering roughly 2,673 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.

Every one of them is a secondary school, which is worth knowing: a secondary site normally has a sports hall, a dining block and several flat roofs, which is where the usable area comes from.

Solar for education buildings across Cambridgeshire

A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Ely models at 904 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,158 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 900 kWp array, sized to the median array applied for at schools around Ely itself, models at about 813,600 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 2,673 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 208,300 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 40,700 kWh across December and January. UK Power 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.

Term dates against the Ely generation curve

A Ely 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. July is the single strongest month here at 13.8 percent of the annual total, and it falls almost entirely inside the holiday.

Winter reverses it. December and January between them return 5 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 6 times as much in July as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 5 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.

Summed over the year, about 49 percent of what a school roof makes arrives while the school is open. For a business trading every weekday the equivalent is roughly 71 percent. Nothing about Ely changes that ratio much, but plenty about your own site changes what to do with it.

Inside the day it happens again. The roof is still at three quarters of its peak at four in the afternoon, by which time a Ely school is largely empty, so the hours that look best on a generation chart are the worst on a consumption one.

A Ely governing body should read that as a sizing constraint, not a reason to stop. The base load that runs through the holidays, servers, comms, refrigeration, ventilation and hot water, is the floor the array should be built up from, and everything above it has to be justified by storage, export or summer occupancy.

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.

East Cambridgeshire schools, phase by phase

East Cambridgeshire has 37 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 13,289 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.

The split is 29 primary, 5 secondary and 3 special, at an average of 359 pupils a site. That is 5.8 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.

Grid connection through UK Power Networks

UK Power Networks is the network operator here, and their answer on export capacity shapes the design. Any commercial array above 3.68 kW per phase connects under G99 rather than G98, and the application fixes what you are allowed to push back onto the network. If the local network is tight, limiting export rarely breaks the case here: most of the generation is consumed on site while the building is working.

Across Cambridgeshire the planning database records 172 solar schemes totalling 2422 MW, of which 46 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).

Ely school solar, answered

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

The model gives 904 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 900 kWp array comes out at roughly 813,600 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 2,673 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 Ely school waste its generation in August?

25.6 percent of the modelled annual output for Ely 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 UK Power Networks. We model all three against your half hourly data before an array is sized.

Will the network around Ely accept the export?

UK Power Networks is the distribution network operator for Cambridgeshire. 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 Ely?

Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from East Cambridgeshire 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 CB6 already done this?

One school scheme is on record in this postcode district, including a 900 kWp array at The Harbour School, Station 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 Ely?

East Cambridgeshire has 37 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 13,289 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.

Nearby

• School roofs in Peterborough
• School roofs in Cambridge
• School roofs in St Neots
• School roofs in Wisbech
• School roofs in Huntingdon
• School roofs in March

All Cambridgeshire locations