Specialist solar panels for schools in Dolgellau

School rooftop solar across Gwynedd

A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Dolgellau models at 746 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 957 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). 16 percent below our mean puts Dolgellau at the weaker end of the range, which raises the premium on self consumption and lowers the value of anything that leaves the site.

Scaled up, a 380 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 68 miles away at St Helens, models at about 283,500 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 1,129 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 72,600 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 10,800 kWh across December and January. SP Energy Networks 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.

What the planning record shows around Dolgellau

Search the Renewable Energy Planning Database for Dolgellau and the area around it 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.

The nearest education scheme on the record is 68 miles from Dolgellau, at St Helens: 380 kWp at The Sutton Academy, Elton Head Road, applicant Located Property Limited, which holds consent and is awaiting construction. That is someone else's application, not ours, and it is here because it shows what Merseyside planning has already accepted at an education site. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.

The summer holiday problem for a Dolgellau school

25.6 percent of the annual output modelled for Dolgellau 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. May is the strongest single month here at 14.7 percent of the annual total, which is still term time, and that works slightly in your favour against towns whose curve peaks in July.

The inverse holds at the other end. December and January together return only 3.8 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 9.2 times as much in May as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 7.2 to one. 76 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 same mismatch repeats every day. Peak generation lands between eleven and three, the timetable ends shortly after, and by four the site is down to caretaking and cleaning. An annual consumption figure cannot show that, which is why we ask for the half hourly data instead.

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 SP Energy Networks 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.

Grid connection through SP Energy Networks

SP Energy Networks operates the distribution network across Gwynedd, 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 Gwynedd the planning database records 19 solar schemes totalling 221 MW, of which 6 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).

Questions governors ask us about Dolgellau schools

What would a 380 kWp array produce at a Dolgellau school?

Yes, and the figure matters more than the sunshine. 746 kWh per kWp a year puts a 380 kWp array at around 283,500 kWh, on roughly 1,129 square metres of roof. The value of that depends on your term time load. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.

What happens to the electricity during the summer holidays in Dolgellau?

Less is wasted than governors expect, but the figure is worth seeing: 25.6 percent of the year is modelled to arrive in July and August here (EU PVGIS v5.2), against a site running on holiday base load. Lettings, holiday clubs and summer works take some of it, storage takes more, and the rest is an export question for SP Energy Networks.

Who do we apply to for export near Dolgellau?

Only SP Energy Networks can answer it for your connection. What we can say is that a capped export limit rarely breaks a school scheme, because the array that suits a school is sized to the term time load rather than to the roof.