Specialist solar panels for schools in Aldershot
A school roof in Aldershot makes 5.7 times as much in July as it does in December, and the school year runs against that curve rather than with it. What we come back with is the usable roof area, the modelled output against your meter data, and the routes schools use to pay for it.
25.7% of the modelled year lands in July and August, on a roof that returns 903 kWh per kWp a year. The worked example below runs at 280 kWp, the median size on the national planning record. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in Aldershot- 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 Hampshire
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Aldershot models at 903 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,158 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is roughly 2 percent above the mean across the towns we cover, so latitude is working slightly in your favour here.
Scaled up, a 280 kWp array, sized to the median array applied for at schools on the national planning record, models at about 252,800 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 832 square metres of clear roof. We use the national median from the planning record rather than a round number, so the example stays anchored to what schools have applied for.
Spread across the year that is about 65,000 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 13,100 kWh across December and January. Scottish and Southern Electricity 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.
Aldershot ranks 10 of 10 towns we cover in Hampshire on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 903 to 987, a spread of 84 kWh per kWp. On a 500 kWp array that is about 42,000 kWh a year between the strongest and weakest town in the county.
What the planning record shows around Aldershot
The Renewable Energy Planning Database holds no school scheme for the GU11 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 15 miles from Aldershot, at Basingstoke: 0 kWp at The Costello School, applicant Nero Energy, which holds consent and is awaiting construction. That is someone else's application, not ours, and it is here because it shows what Hampshire planning has already accepted at an education site. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
The summer holiday problem for a Aldershot school
25.7 percent of the annual output modelled for Aldershot 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 13.9 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 5.2 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 5.7 times as much in July as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 4.8 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 Aldershot as anywhere else.
Then there is the afternoon. From roughly three o'clock the building empties while the roof is still working, so a system sized on annual consumption will over-generate in exactly the hours nobody is there. We size on half hourly data for that reason.
The conclusion is not that a Aldershot 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 Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks 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 | 25 | 16 | 9 |
| Feb | 15 | 38 | 20 | 18 |
| Mar | 21 | 73 | 49 | 24 |
| Apr | 12 | 105 | 42 | 63 |
| May | 17 | 120 | 66 | 54 |
| Jun | 21 | 125 | 88 | 38 |
| Jul | 11 | 126 | 45 | 81 |
| Aug | 0 | 106 | 0 | 106 |
| Sep | 20 | 83 | 55 | 28 |
| Oct | 17 | 51 | 28 | 23 |
| Nov | 21 | 30 | 21 | 9 |
| Dec | 15 | 22 | 11 | 11 |
| Year | 190 | 904 | 441 | 463 |
How many schools Rushmoor has
Rushmoor has 38 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 12,084 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 30 primary, 4 secondary, 2 special and 2 further education, at an average of 318 pupils a site. That is 7.5 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.
Grid connection through Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks
Connections around Aldershot are handled by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, 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 Hampshire the planning database records 237 solar schemes totalling 1634 MW, of which 51 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
Start with the Aldershot roof
The first survey answers three questions at once: what the roofs carry, what they generate against your own timetable, and how a Aldershot 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.
Questions governors ask us about Aldershot schools
- Is there enough sun around Aldershot for this to be worth doing?
- The model gives 903 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 280 kWp array comes out at roughly 252,800 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 832 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 Aldershot school waste its generation in August?
- 25.7 percent of the modelled annual output for Aldershot 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 Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks. We model all three against your half hourly data before an array is sized.
- Will the network around Aldershot accept the export?
- Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks is the distribution network operator for Hampshire. 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 Aldershot?
- Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from Rushmoor 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 Aldershot?
- Rushmoor has 38 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 12,084 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.