Specialist solar panels for schools in Bishop's Stortford
The planning record around Bishop's Stortford carries 2 school and college solar applications, the largest of them 290 kWp. We arrange the roof survey, model the output against the school's own half hourly consumption, and set out the funding routes.
911 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 290 kWp array, the median size schools around Bishop's Stortford have applied for, models at about 264,200 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in Bishop's Stortford- 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.
Which schools around CM23 have applied
The Renewable Energy Planning Database records 2 school and college solar schemes in the CM23 postcode district. A college, Hockerill Anglo European College, Dunmow Road, applied for 290 kWp roof mounted and the scheme is with the planning authority. The applicant on record is Solar Options for Schools Limited. Hockerill Anglo European College, Dunmow Road is down for a 290 kWp roof mounted array and the application holds consent and is awaiting construction. The applicant on record is Solar Options for Schools Limited.
None of these are ours. They are entries in the public planning record, reproduced here because a consented array at a school down the road is a better guide to your own prospects than any national average. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
One thing to be clear about: the drawing at the head of this page is an illustrative estate, not Hockerill Anglo European College, Dunmow Road and not a survey of anyone's roof. What we know about the schemes above is only what the public planning record says.
The median array applied for here is 290 kWp. At 290 kWp you are covering roughly 861 square metres of roof once walkways, edge zones and rooflight setbacks come out, which on most sites means a sports hall plus one teaching block rather than the whole estate.
Every one of them is a college, which is worth knowing: a college runs longer days and more plant than a school, and it usually has the flat roof area to match.
| Site on record | Applicant on record | Size | Mounting | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hockerill Anglo European College, Dunmow Road | Solar Options for Schools Limited | 290 kWp | Roof | Application Submitted |
| Hockerill Anglo European College, Dunmow Road | Solar Options for Schools Limited | 290 kWp | Roof | Awaiting Construction |
Solar for education buildings across Hertfordshire
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Bishop's Stortford models at 911 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,167 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 3 percent above the mean across the towns we cover, so latitude is working slightly in your favour here.
Scaled up, a 290 kWp array, sized to the median array applied for at schools around Bishop's Stortford itself, models at about 264,200 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 861 square metres of clear roof. That size is not one we chose. It is what schools in this district have actually applied for.
Spread across the year that is about 67,400 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 13,200 kWh across December and January. UK Power 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.
Bishop's Stortford ranks 1 of 10 towns we cover in Hertfordshire on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 895 to 911, a spread of 16 kWh per kWp. Within Hertfordshire that difference is small enough to ignore: where the building sits is not what decides this scheme, your consumption pattern is.
Term dates against the Bishop's Stortford generation curve
A Bishop's Stortford school roof generates most in the weeks its buildings are closed. 25.5 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 13.8 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 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 6 times as much in June as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 5.1 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 Bishop's Stortford as anywhere else.
The daily curve does the same thing in miniature. Load drops sharply after about three o'clock, generation does not, so the last three hours of a summer afternoon are pushing into an empty building unless something absorbs them. Half hourly meter data is the only way to see how much.
The conclusion is not that a Bishop's Stortford 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 UK Power Networks to earn its keep.
We set out the complete version of the term time arithmetic 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 | 74 | 50 | 24 |
| Apr | 12 | 106 | 42 | 64 |
| May | 17 | 121 | 66 | 55 |
| Jun | 21 | 126 | 88 | 38 |
| Jul | 11 | 126 | 45 | 81 |
| Aug | 0 | 107 | 0 | 107 |
| Sep | 20 | 85 | 57 | 28 |
| Oct | 17 | 52 | 29 | 23 |
| Nov | 21 | 31 | 22 | 9 |
| Dec | 15 | 21 | 10 | 11 |
| Year | 190 | 912 | 445 | 467 |
East Hertfordshire schools, phase by phase
East Hertfordshire has 80 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 29,284 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 61 primary, 15 secondary, 3 special and 1 further education, at an average of 366 pupils a site. Read 4.1 primaries per secondary as a sequencing hint rather than a statistic. A primary is a single survey visit and a modest array; a secondary is several roofs of different ages on one site, and that is where both the area and the complications are.
A trust holding more than one of these sites should look at them together. Grouping the surveys turns the grid question, the funding question and the procurement route into one exercise rather than four, and it usually changes which roof goes first.
Grid connection through UK Power Networks
UK Power Networks is the network operator here, and their answer on export capacity shapes the design. Any commercial array above 3.68 kW per phase connects under G99 rather than G98, and the application fixes what you are allowed to push back onto the network. If the local network is tight, limiting export rarely breaks the case here: most of the generation is consumed on site while the building is working.
Across Hertfordshire the planning database records 119 solar schemes totalling 844 MW, of which 12 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
Book a roof survey at your Bishop's Stortford school
Roof condition decides the order of works on most school estates, so that is where we start. Send us the postcode and a rough roof area, with twelve months of half hourly readings if you have them, and we come back with usable area, modelled output against your own load, and the funding routes.
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.
Bishop's Stortford school solar, answered
- Is there enough sun around Bishop's Stortford for this to be worth doing?
- The model gives 911 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 290 kWp array comes out at roughly 264,200 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 861 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 Bishop's Stortford school waste its generation in August?
- 25.5 percent of the modelled annual output for Bishop's Stortford 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 UK Power Networks. We model all three against your half hourly data before an array is sized.
- Will the network around Bishop's Stortford accept the export?
- UK Power Networks is the distribution network operator for Hertfordshire. 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 Bishop's Stortford?
- Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from Uttlesford 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.
- Has a school near CM23 already done this?
- 2 school schemes are on record in this postcode district, including a 290 kWp array at Hockerill Anglo European College, Dunmow Road that is with the planning authority. We were not involved in it. It is a public planning record, and it matters less as proof that solar works than as evidence of what this authority and this network operator have already accepted. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
- How many schools are there around Bishop's Stortford?
- East Hertfordshire has 80 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 29,284 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.