Specialist solar panels for schools in Cirencester
National Grid Electricity Distribution runs the network around Cirencester, and on a school site their answer on export shapes the design as much as the roof pitch does. We look at the roof, the switchboard and the timetable in that order, then set the array size against what the site draws in term time.
142,700 kWh a year, modelled for a 160 kWp array on roughly 475 sqm of clear roof. That is 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 Cirencester- 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.
School rooftop solar across Gloucestershire
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Cirencester models at 892 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,142 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That puts Cirencester in the middle of the national range, close enough to our mean of 886 kWh per kWp that the interesting question moves straight to consumption.
Scaled up, a 160 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 14 miles away at Cheltenham, models at about 142,700 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 475 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 36,500 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 7,000 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.
Cirencester ranks 2 of 6 towns we cover in Gloucestershire on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 870 to 905, a spread of 35 kWh per kWp. Within Gloucestershire that difference is small enough to ignore: where the building sits is not what decides this scheme, your consumption pattern is.
What the planning record shows around Cirencester
The Renewable Energy Planning Database holds no school scheme for the GL7 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.
The nearest education scheme on the record is 14 miles from Cirencester, at Cheltenham: 160 kWp at Ladies College Swimming Pool, Malvern Road, applicant Ladies College Swimming Pool, which holds consent and is awaiting construction. That is someone else's application, not ours, and it is here because it shows what Gloucestershire planning has already accepted at an education site. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
The summer holiday problem for a Cirencester school
25.6 percent of the annual output modelled for Cirencester arrives in the two months a school uses least (EU PVGIS v5.2). Term ends in the third week of July and the buildings stay largely empty until September. July is the single strongest month here at 14 percent of the annual total, and it falls almost entirely inside the holiday.
The inverse holds at the other end. December and January together return only 4.9 percent of the year, and those are the months with the heating, the lighting and the full timetable all running at once. The roof makes 6.3 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.
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.
Daily shape compounds it. A school's load climbs from breakfast club, holds through the teaching day and falls away from about three in the afternoon, while generation is still strong until six in high summer. That is why we size against half hourly meter data rather than against annual consumption: the annual figure hides both problems.
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 whole argument about term dates and 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 | 38 | 20 | 18 |
| Mar | 21 | 73 | 49 | 24 |
| Apr | 12 | 104 | 42 | 62 |
| May | 17 | 120 | 66 | 54 |
| Jun | 21 | 123 | 86 | 37 |
| Jul | 11 | 125 | 44 | 81 |
| Aug | 0 | 103 | 0 | 103 |
| Sep | 20 | 81 | 54 | 27 |
| Oct | 17 | 50 | 27 | 23 |
| Nov | 21 | 30 | 21 | 9 |
| Dec | 15 | 20 | 10 | 10 |
| Year | 190 | 891 | 434 | 457 |
Grid connection through National Grid Electricity Distribution
National Grid Electricity Distribution operates the distribution network across Gloucestershire, 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 Gloucestershire the planning database records 207 solar schemes totalling 1592 MW, of which 39 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
How many schools Cotswold has
Cotswold has 51 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 12,174 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 43 primary, 6 secondary, 1 special and 1 further education, at an average of 239 pupils a site. That is 7.2 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.
Start with the Cirencester roof
We survey school and college roofs throughout Gloucestershire. 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.
Questions governors ask us about Cirencester schools
- How much would a school roof near Cirencester generate?
- Modelled at 892 kWh per kWp a year, a 160 kWp array on a Cirencester school models at about 142,700 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 Cirencester?
- It goes somewhere, just not into the timetable. 25.6 percent of the Cirencester 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 Cirencester school?
- Applications go to National Grid Electricity Distribution, who run the network across Gloucestershire. 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 Cotswold 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 Cotswold on siting and design. Listed buildings and conservation areas are the usual exceptions. We put the position to Cotswold before a design is finalised.
- How many schools are there around Cirencester?
- Cotswold has 51 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 12,174 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.