Specialist solar panels for schools in Exeter

Solar for education buildings across Devon

A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Exeter models at 938 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,198 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). At 6 percent above our mean, Exeter is at the strong end of the range, and a roof here earns more for every square metre than the same roof would further north.

Scaled up, a 260 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 20 miles away at Paignton, models at about 243,900 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 772 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 61,500 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 12,700 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.

School solar on record near EX2

No school or college solar scheme appears in the EX2 postcode district in the Renewable Energy Planning Database. That is a reporting threshold rather than a verdict. The database records generating stations from one megawatt upward reliably and smaller ones patchily, and almost every school array is a fraction of that, so a roof full of panels on a Exeter secondary could be generating today without ever reaching it.

Look 20 miles out and there is one: South Devon College, Spots Hall in Paignton, 260 kWp, applied for by South Devon College, which was withdrawn before determination. 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 Exeter generation curve

A Exeter 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. May is the strongest single month here at 13.5 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 5.2 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 5.8 times as much in May 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.

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 Exeter 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 complete version of the term time arithmetic on the home page, and what it does to a payback figure under costs.

Grid connection through National Grid Electricity Distribution

National Grid Electricity Distribution 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 Devon the planning database records 248 solar schemes totalling 1451 MW, of which 90 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).

Exeter schools, phase by phase

Exeter has 40 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 15,200 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.

The split is 29 primary, 6 secondary, 3 special and 2 further education, at an average of 380 pupils a site. Read 4.8 primaries per secondary as a sequencing hint rather than a statistic. A primary is a single survey visit and a modest array; a secondary is several roofs of different ages on one site, and that is where both the area and the complications are.

A trust holding more than one of these sites should look at them together. Grouping the surveys turns the grid question, the funding question and the procurement route into one exercise rather than four, and it usually changes which roof goes first.

Exeter school solar, answered

How much would a school roof near Exeter generate?

Modelled at 938 kWh per kWp a year, a 260 kWp array on a Exeter school models at about 243,900 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 Exeter?

It goes somewhere, just not into the timetable. 25.2 percent of the Exeter 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 Exeter school?

Applications go to National Grid Electricity Distribution, who run the network across Devon. 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 Exeter 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 Exeter on siting and design. Listed buildings and conservation areas are the usual exceptions. We put the position to Exeter before a design is finalised.

How many schools are there around Exeter?

Exeter has 40 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 15,200 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 Plymouth
• School roofs in Paignton
• School roofs in Torquay
• School roofs in Exmouth
• School roofs in Barnstaple
• School roofs in Newton Abbot

All Devon locations