Specialist solar panels for schools in Derby

Which schools around DE1 have applied

The Renewable Energy Planning Database records 1 school and college solar scheme in the DE1 postcode district. A college, Landau Forte College, Fox Street, applied for 490 kWp roof mounted and the scheme is with the planning authority. The applicant on record is eEnergy Group PLC.

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 Landau Forte College, Fox Street 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 490 kWp. At 490 kWp you are covering roughly 1,455 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 college, which is worth knowing: a college runs longer days and more plant than a school, and it usually has the flat roof area to match.

Solar for education buildings across Derbyshire

A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Derby models at 862 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,100 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is about 3 percent below the mean across the towns we cover, which is a smaller gap than most schools expect and smaller than the gap between a well matched and a badly matched system.

Scaled up, a 490 kWp array, sized to the median array applied for at schools around Derby itself, models at about 422,400 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 1,455 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 109,000 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 20,700 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.

Term dates against the Derby generation curve

A Derby school roof generates most in the weeks its buildings are closed. 25.8 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 13.9 percent of the annual total, and it falls almost entirely inside the holiday.

Winter reverses it. December and January between them return 4.9 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 5.2 to one. 74 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 Derby as anywhere else.

The daily curve does the same thing in miniature. Load drops sharply after about three o'clock, generation does not, so the last three hours of a summer afternoon are pushing into an empty building unless something absorbs them. Half hourly meter data is the only way to see how much.

The conclusion is not that a Derby 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 National Grid Electricity Distribution 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.

Derby schools, phase by phase

Derby has 104 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 45,862 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.

The split is 81 primary, 16 secondary, 6 special and 1 further education, at an average of 441 pupils a site. A ratio of 5.1 to one tells you where the roof area is. It is not with the 81 primaries, which mostly offer a hall and a teaching block each, but with the larger sites that were built with a sports hall and a dining block attached.

Where a multi-academy trust holds several of those sites, surveying the estate in one pass beats taking a roof at a time. The design work, the connection applications and the procurement paperwork are the same job repeated, and a trust that runs them together gets a better answer on all three.

Grid connection through National Grid Electricity Distribution

Connections around Derby 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 Derbyshire the planning database records 144 solar schemes totalling 904 MW, of which 27 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).

Derby school solar, answered

How much would a school roof near Derby generate?

Modelled at 862 kWh per kWp a year, a 490 kWp array on a Derby school models at about 422,400 kWh. What decides whether that is worth doing is how much of it the school uses itself, not the total. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

How does the school year affect a solar scheme in Derby?

It goes somewhere, just not into the timetable. 25.8 percent of the Derby generating year lands in July and August (EU PVGIS v5.2), and a closed school still runs servers, comms, refrigeration and ventilation. What that base load does not absorb is either stored, exported under an agreement with National Grid Electricity Distribution, or a sign the array is too big. We test which before sizing anything.

Which network operator handles the connection at a Derby school?

Applications go to National Grid Electricity Distribution, who run the network across Derbyshire. An export-limited offer usually still works for a school, because the summer surplus is the part you were least likely to be paid much for anyway.

What does Derby require for solar on a school building?

Roof-mounted solar on a non-domestic building often falls within permitted development under Part 14 of the General Permitted Development Order, subject to limits on how far the panels stand proud of the roof plane and, above a threshold, to prior approval from Derby on siting and design. Listed buildings and conservation areas are the usual exceptions. We put the position to Derby before a design is finalised.

Has a school near DE1 already done this?

One school scheme is on record in this postcode district, including a 490 kWp array at Landau Forte College, Fox Street that is with the planning authority. 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 Derby?

Derby has 104 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 45,862 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 Chesterfield
• School roofs in Ilkeston
• School roofs in Long Eaton
• School roofs in Swadlincote
• School roofs in Buxton
• School roofs in Belper

All Derbyshire locations