Specialist solar panels for schools in Plymouth
What decides a solar scheme at a Plymouth 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.
25.7% of the modelled year lands in July and August, on a roof that returns 960 kWh per kWp a year. The worked example below runs at 260 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 Plymouth- 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 Devon
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Plymouth models at 960 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,225 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is around 8 percent above the mean across the towns we cover, which is about as strong as a UK school roof gets.
Scaled up, a 260 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 24 miles away at Paignton, models at about 249,600 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 64,100 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 11,200 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.
Plymouth ranks 2 of 8 towns we cover in Devon on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 903 to 961, 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 PL3
Search the Renewable Energy Planning Database for the PL3 postcode district and nothing comes back under education. That is worth stating plainly and then setting aside: the register is built around generating stations, a school array is a fraction of the size it captures reliably, and plenty of school roofs never appear in any national record at all.
Look 24 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 Plymouth generation curve
A Plymouth school roof generates most in the weeks its buildings are closed. 25.7 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 13.9 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 4.5 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 7.1 times as much in June as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 6.1 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 Plymouth as anywhere else.
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 Plymouth school has over that, and they are worth counting properly.
The conclusion is not that a Plymouth 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 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 | 24 | 15 | 9 |
| Feb | 15 | 42 | 23 | 20 |
| Mar | 21 | 78 | 53 | 25 |
| Apr | 12 | 114 | 46 | 68 |
| May | 17 | 132 | 72 | 60 |
| Jun | 21 | 134 | 94 | 40 |
| Jul | 11 | 132 | 47 | 85 |
| Aug | 0 | 115 | 0 | 115 |
| Sep | 20 | 87 | 58 | 29 |
| Oct | 17 | 53 | 29 | 24 |
| Nov | 21 | 31 | 22 | 9 |
| Dec | 15 | 19 | 9 | 10 |
| Year | 190 | 961 | 468 | 493 |
Plymouth schools, phase by phase
Plymouth has 98 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 36,803 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 71 primary, 19 secondary, 7 special and 1 further education, at an average of 376 pupils a site. 3.7 primaries per secondary is a mix weighted towards small sites. The roof area, and therefore most of the generation, sits with the 19 secondaries and the 1 further education site.
Across an estate of that size the roofs will not be in the same condition, and that is the point of surveying them together: the block with the best orientation is often not the block whose covering has twenty years left in it.
Grid connection through National Grid Electricity Distribution
Connections around Plymouth 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 Devon the planning database records 248 solar schemes totalling 1451 MW, of which 90 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
Book a roof survey at your Plymouth school
We survey school and college roofs throughout Devon. We need the postcode, a rough roof area and your half hourly meter data if the trust has it. From that we model what the roof carries, what it generates against the timetable, and which of the funding routes actually suits a school of your size.
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.
Plymouth school solar, answered
- Is there enough sun around Plymouth for this to be worth doing?
- The model gives 960 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 260 kWp array comes out at roughly 249,600 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 772 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 Plymouth school waste its generation in August?
- 25.7 percent of the modelled annual output for Plymouth 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 Plymouth accept the export?
- National Grid Electricity Distribution is the distribution network operator for Devon. 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 Plymouth?
- Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from Plymouth 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 Plymouth?
- Plymouth has 98 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 36,803 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.