Specialist solar panels for schools in Gloucester
25.7 percent of what a Gloucester school roof makes arrives in July and August, which is when the buildings are shut. A survey here starts with the covering and the structure, then the incoming supply, then what the timetable actually draws.
25.7% of the modelled year lands in July and August, on a roof that returns 870 kWh per kWp a year. The worked example below runs at 160 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 Gloucester- 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 PV for academy trusts across Gloucestershire
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Gloucester models at 870 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,116 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). Gloucester sits 2 percent under our mean. Worth knowing, but not decisive: how well the array matches the timetable moves the answer further than the latitude does.
Scaled up, a 160 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 7 miles away at Cheltenham, models at about 139,200 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 35,800 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 6,700 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.
Gloucester ranks 6 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.
The planning position for Gloucester schools
The Renewable Energy Planning Database holds no school scheme for the GL4 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 closest recorded one is about 7 miles away at Cheltenham: Ladies College Swimming Pool, Malvern Road, a 160 kWp roof mounted array applied for by Ladies College Swimming Pool, which holds consent and is awaiting construction. We were not involved in it. We cite it because it is a public record of what has cleared planning in this part of Gloucestershire. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
Why demand in Gloucester falls as the roof peaks
The generating year and the school year are out of step in Gloucester. July and August carry 25.7 percent of the modelled output (EU PVGIS v5.2), and the site is closed for most of those nine weeks. July is the single strongest month here at 14 percent of the annual total, and it falls almost entirely inside the holiday.
At the other end of the year the mismatch flips. Only 4.8 percent of output falls in December and January, the two months when a Gloucester school is fully occupied and its heating and lighting are at their heaviest. The roof makes 6.4 times as much in July as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 5.3 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.
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.
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 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 | 23 | 15 | 8 |
| Feb | 15 | 37 | 20 | 17 |
| Mar | 21 | 70 | 47 | 23 |
| Apr | 12 | 103 | 41 | 62 |
| May | 17 | 118 | 65 | 53 |
| Jun | 21 | 121 | 85 | 36 |
| Jul | 11 | 122 | 43 | 79 |
| Aug | 0 | 101 | 0 | 101 |
| Sep | 20 | 79 | 53 | 26 |
| Oct | 17 | 48 | 26 | 22 |
| Nov | 21 | 28 | 20 | 8 |
| Dec | 15 | 19 | 9 | 10 |
| Year | 190 | 869 | 424 | 445 |
Grid connection through National Grid Electricity Distribution
Connections around Gloucester 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 Gloucestershire the planning database records 207 solar schemes totalling 1592 MW, of which 39 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
The school estate in Gloucester
Gloucester has 45 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 22,134 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 34 primary, 9 secondary, 1 special and 1 further education, at an average of 492 pupils a site. That is 3.8 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.
Send us the school postcode
The first survey answers three questions at once: what the roofs carry, what they generate against your own timetable, and how a Gloucester school pays for it. Send the postcode, an approximate roof area per block and half hourly meter data if the school can get it from its supplier.
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.
What Gloucester trusts ask before a survey
- Is there enough sun around Gloucester for this to be worth doing?
- The model gives 870 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 160 kWp array comes out at roughly 139,200 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 475 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 Gloucester school waste its generation in August?
- 25.7 percent of the modelled annual output for Gloucester 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 Gloucester accept the export?
- National Grid Electricity Distribution is the distribution network operator for Gloucestershire. 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 Gloucester?
- Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from Gloucester 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 Gloucester?
- Gloucester has 45 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 22,134 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.