Specialist solar panels for schools in Camborne
Cornwall has 277 state-funded schools and colleges, and most of them are buying electricity in exactly the hours their own roofs could be making it. We start with the roof build up and the age of the covering, because across a school estate that is usually what decides which block goes first.
25.2% of the modelled year lands in July and August, on a roof that returns 921 kWh per kWp a year. The worked example below runs at 240 kWp, 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 Camborne- 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.
Solar for education buildings across Cornwall
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Camborne models at 921 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,172 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). Camborne models 4 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 240 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 11 miles away at Truro, models at about 221,000 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 713 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 55,700 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 11,100 kWh across December and January. National Grid Electricity Distribution 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.
Camborne ranks 8 of 8 towns we cover in Cornwall on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 921 to 979, a spread of 58 kWh per kWp. On a 500 kWp array that is about 29,000 kWh a year between the strongest and weakest town in the county.
School solar on record near TR14
The TR14 postcode district has no education solar entry in the Renewable Energy Planning Database. Almost no school array is large enough to be captured there reliably, so the absence tells you about the reporting threshold and very little about what is already on the roofs around Camborne.
Look 11 miles out and there is one: Sir Ben Ainslie Sports Centre, Trennick Lane in Truro, 240 kWp, applied for by Truro School, which holds consent and is awaiting construction. None of our doing. It is a public planning record, and the nearest evidence available of how an application like yours is treated around here. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
Term dates against the Camborne generation curve
A Camborne school roof generates most in the weeks its buildings are closed. 25.2 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 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 June as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 5.2 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.
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 Camborne school is largely empty, so the hours that look best on a generation chart are the worst on a consumption one.
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 National Grid Electricity Distribution pays for the surplus that is left.
We set out the full treatment of the school year against 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 | 42 | 23 | 20 |
| Mar | 21 | 75 | 51 | 24 |
| Apr | 12 | 111 | 44 | 67 |
| May | 17 | 124 | 68 | 56 |
| Jun | 21 | 127 | 89 | 38 |
| Jul | 11 | 123 | 44 | 79 |
| Aug | 0 | 109 | 0 | 109 |
| Sep | 20 | 83 | 55 | 28 |
| Oct | 17 | 52 | 29 | 23 |
| Nov | 21 | 30 | 21 | 9 |
| Dec | 15 | 21 | 10 | 11 |
| Year | 190 | 922 | 450 | 472 |
Grid connection through National Grid Electricity Distribution
Connections around Camborne are handled by National Grid Electricity Distribution, 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 Cornwall the planning database records 174 solar schemes totalling 1116 MW, of which 88 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
Cornwall schools, phase by phase
Cornwall has 277 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 71,014 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 238 primary, 31 secondary, 5 special and 3 further education, at an average of 256 pupils a site. At 7.7 primaries to every secondary, most of the buildings here are small. That is not a reason to skip them, but it does mean the usable area on a primary is a hall roof and a teaching block rather than an estate.
For a trust with more than one site in Cornwall, the first survey is worth running across the whole estate. It tells you which roofs are near the end of their covering life, which have the switchboard headroom, and therefore which one should carry the first array.
Book a roof survey at your Camborne school
Roof condition decides the order of works on most school estates, so that is where we start. Send us the postcode and a rough roof area, with twelve months of half hourly readings if you have them, and we come back with usable area, modelled output against your own load, and the funding routes.
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.
Camborne school solar, answered
- Is there enough sun around Camborne for this to be worth doing?
- The model gives 921 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 240 kWp array comes out at roughly 221,000 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 713 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 Camborne school waste its generation in August?
- 25.2 percent of the modelled annual output for Camborne 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 National Grid Electricity Distribution. We model all three against your half hourly data before an array is sized.
- Will the network around Camborne accept the export?
- National Grid Electricity Distribution is the distribution network operator for Cornwall. 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 Camborne?
- Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from Cornwall 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 Camborne?
- Cornwall has 277 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 71,014 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.