Specialist solar panels for schools in St Ives
UK Power Networks runs the network around St Ives, and on a school site their answer on export shapes the design as much as the roof pitch does. We look at the roof, the switchboard and the timetable in that order, then set the array size against what the site draws in term time.
906,000 kWh a year, modelled for a 1000 kWp array on roughly 2,970 sqm of clear roof. That is the size applied for at the nearest school scheme on record. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in St Ives- 1 teaching block
- 2 hall and kitchen
- 3 sports hall
- 4 1960s block, no array
- first phase
- later phase
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.
School rooftop solar across Cambridgeshire
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in St Ives models at 906 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). St Ives models 2 percent above our mean. That is a real advantage, though a smaller one than the difference between an array matched to the timetable and one matched to the roof.
Scaled up, a 1,000 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 13 miles away at Cambridge, models at about 906,000 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 2,970 square metres of clear roof. We take the size from the nearest real application rather than a round number, so the example is anchored to something a planning officer has already seen.
Spread across the year that is about 230,100 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 47,100 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.
St Ives ranks 3 of 8 towns we cover in Cambridgeshire on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 898 to 908, a spread of 10 kWh per kWp. Within Cambridgeshire that difference is small enough to ignore: where the building sits is not what decides this scheme, your consumption pattern is.
What the planning record shows around St Ives
The Renewable Energy Planning Database holds no school scheme for the PE27 postcode district. Read that as a gap in the record, not a gap in the roofs: the database is reliable above one megawatt and thin below it, and a school array is typically a fifth of a megawatt.
The nearest education scheme on the record is 13 miles from St Ives, at Cambridge: 1,000 kWp at St Bedes Inter-Church School, applicant Solar Options for Schools, which holds consent and is awaiting construction. That is someone else's application, not ours, and it is here because it shows what Cambridgeshire planning has already accepted at an education site. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
The summer holiday problem for a St Ives school
25.4 percent of the annual output modelled for St Ives arrives in the two months a school uses least (EU PVGIS v5.2). Term ends in the third week of July and the buildings stay largely empty until September. June is the strongest single month here at 13.7 percent of the annual total, which is still term time, and that works slightly in your favour against towns whose curve peaks in July.
The inverse holds at the other end. December and January together return only 5.2 percent of the year, and those are the months with the heating, the lighting and the full timetable all running at once. The roof makes 5.6 times as much in June as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 4.8 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.
Across the country the arithmetic settles at roughly 49 percent of output on a session day, against about 71 percent for a weekday business. That figure hardly varies by location, which is why the local numbers that matter here are the yield, the roofs and what has already cleared planning nearby.
And the week has the same hole in it. Two days in seven the site is closed altogether, at no cost to the generation, which is part of why the session day share sits where it does. Weekend lettings are the one lever a St Ives school has over that, and they are worth counting properly.
That argues for a particular shape of scheme rather than against one. Size to the load that does not stop at the end of term, count in lettings, holiday clubs and summer works honestly rather than optimistically, and then decide whether storage or an export arrangement with UK Power Networks pays for the surplus that is left.
We set out the whole argument about term dates and the generation curve on the home page, and what it does to a payback figure under costs.
- generated while the school is open
- generated at a weekend or in the holidays
The same figures as a table
| Month | Session days | Output, kWh per kWp | School open | School closed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 20 | 25 | 16 | 9 |
| Feb | 15 | 40 | 21 | 19 |
| Mar | 21 | 74 | 50 | 24 |
| Apr | 12 | 104 | 42 | 62 |
| May | 17 | 121 | 66 | 55 |
| Jun | 21 | 124 | 87 | 37 |
| Jul | 11 | 124 | 44 | 80 |
| Aug | 0 | 106 | 0 | 106 |
| Sep | 20 | 83 | 55 | 28 |
| Oct | 17 | 52 | 29 | 23 |
| Nov | 21 | 31 | 22 | 9 |
| Dec | 15 | 22 | 11 | 11 |
| Year | 190 | 906 | 443 | 463 |
Grid connection through UK Power Networks
UK Power Networks operates the distribution network across Cambridgeshire, so the export application goes to them. Anything larger than 3.68 kW per phase falls under G99, which means an application before commissioning rather than a notification afterwards. A constrained network is not the end of a scheme. Capping export costs little when the building already absorbs most of what the roof produces.
Across Cambridgeshire the planning database records 172 solar schemes totalling 2422 MW, of which 46 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
How many schools Huntingdonshire has
Huntingdonshire has 74 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 24,299 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 63 primary, 7 secondary and 4 special, at an average of 328 pupils a site. That is 9 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.
Start with the St Ives roof
Lenzie Consulting Ltd arranges roof surveys for schools across Cambridgeshire. 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.
Questions governors ask us about St Ives schools
- Is there enough sun around St Ives for this to be worth doing?
- The model gives 906 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 1,000 kWp array comes out at roughly 906,000 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 2,970 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 St Ives school waste its generation in August?
- 25.4 percent of the modelled annual output for St Ives 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 St Ives 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 St Ives?
- Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from Huntingdonshire 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.
- How many schools are there around St Ives?
- Huntingdonshire has 74 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 24,299 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.