Specialist solar panels for schools in Long Eaton
What decides a solar scheme at a Long Eaton school is how much of the output the site uses itself, not how much the roof makes. We arrange the roof survey, model the output against the school's own half hourly consumption, and set out the funding routes.
866 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 345 kWp array, the median size schools across Derbyshire have applied for, models at about 298,800 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in Long Eaton- 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 Derbyshire
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Long Eaton models at 866 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,105 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 2 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 345 kWp array, sized to the median array applied for at schools across Derbyshire, models at about 298,800 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 1,025 square metres of clear roof. We use that size because it is what schools across Derbyshire have applied for, not because it suits the arithmetic.
Spread across the year that is about 77,700 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 14,300 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.
Long Eaton ranks 1 of 8 towns we cover in Derbyshire on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 805 to 866, a spread of 61 kWh per kWp. On a 500 kWp array that is about 30,500 kWh a year between the strongest and weakest town in the county.
School solar on record near NG10
The Renewable Energy Planning Database holds no school scheme for the NG10 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.
Look 7 miles out and there is one: Rushcliffe School, Boundary Road in West Bridgford, 0 kWp, applied for by Private Developer, which is with the planning authority. 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 Long Eaton generation curve
A Long Eaton school roof generates most in the weeks its buildings are closed. 26 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 14 percent of the annual total, and it falls almost entirely inside the holiday.
Winter reverses it. December and January between them return 4.8 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 6.1 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 Long Eaton as anywhere else.
The weekly pattern repeats the annual one. Saturdays and Sundays generate as well as any other day and consume almost nothing, so before storage or export is even discussed it is worth knowing what the site does at a weekend, which only half hourly data will tell you.
The conclusion is not that a Long Eaton 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.
- 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 | 22 | 14 | 8 |
| Feb | 15 | 37 | 20 | 17 |
| Mar | 21 | 71 | 48 | 23 |
| Apr | 12 | 101 | 40 | 61 |
| May | 17 | 119 | 65 | 54 |
| Jun | 21 | 117 | 82 | 35 |
| Jul | 11 | 121 | 43 | 78 |
| Aug | 0 | 104 | 0 | 104 |
| Sep | 20 | 79 | 53 | 26 |
| Oct | 17 | 48 | 26 | 22 |
| Nov | 21 | 28 | 20 | 8 |
| Dec | 15 | 20 | 10 | 10 |
| Year | 190 | 867 | 421 | 446 |
Erewash schools, phase by phase
Erewash has 46 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 14,672 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 37 primary, 6 secondary and 3 special, at an average of 319 pupils a site. That is 6.2 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 National Grid Electricity Distribution
National Grid Electricity Distribution operates the distribution network across Derbyshire, 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 Derbyshire the planning database records 144 solar schemes totalling 904 MW, of which 27 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
Book a roof survey at your Long Eaton 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.
Long Eaton school solar, answered
- Is there enough sun around Long Eaton for this to be worth doing?
- The model gives 866 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 345 kWp array comes out at roughly 298,800 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 1,025 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 Long Eaton school waste its generation in August?
- 26 percent of the modelled annual output for Long Eaton 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 Long Eaton accept the export?
- National Grid Electricity Distribution is the distribution network operator for Derbyshire. 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 Long Eaton?
- Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from Erewash 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 Long Eaton?
- Erewash has 46 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 14,672 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.