Specialist solar panels for schools in Corby
National Grid Electricity Distribution runs the network around Corby, 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.
151,600 kWh a year, modelled for a 170 kWp array on roughly 505 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 Corby- 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 Northamptonshire
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Corby models at 892 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,140 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That puts Corby 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 170 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 10 miles away at Market Harborough, models at about 151,600 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 505 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 38,800 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 7,600 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.
Corby ranks 6 of 7 towns we cover in Northamptonshire on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 890 to 900, a spread of 10 kWh per kWp. Within Northamptonshire 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 Corby
Search the Renewable Energy Planning Database for the NN17 postcode district 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 10 miles from Corby, at Market Harborough: 170 kWp at The Robert Smyth School, Burnmill Road, applicant Robert Smyth Academy, which was revised and resubmitted. That is someone else's application, not ours, and it is here because it shows what Leicestershire planning has already accepted at an education site. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
The summer holiday problem for a Corby school
25.6 percent of the annual output modelled for Corby 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 13.8 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 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 5.9 times as much in July as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 5 to one. 73 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 | 103 | 41 | 62 |
| May | 17 | 121 | 66 | 55 |
| Jun | 21 | 121 | 85 | 36 |
| Jul | 11 | 123 | 44 | 79 |
| Aug | 0 | 105 | 0 | 105 |
| Sep | 20 | 82 | 55 | 27 |
| Oct | 17 | 51 | 28 | 23 |
| Nov | 21 | 30 | 21 | 9 |
| Dec | 15 | 21 | 10 | 11 |
| Year | 190 | 892 | 434 | 458 |
Grid connection through National Grid Electricity Distribution
Connections around Corby 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 Northamptonshire the planning database records 133 solar schemes totalling 1932 MW, of which 25 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
How many schools North Northamptonshire has
North Northamptonshire has 144 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 56,109 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 115 primary, 21 secondary and 8 special, at an average of 390 pupils a site. 5.5 primaries per secondary is a mix weighted towards small sites. The roof area, and therefore most of the generation, sits with the 21 secondaries.
Across an estate of that size the roofs will not be in the same condition, and that is the point of surveying them together: the block with the best orientation is often not the block whose covering has twenty years left in it.
Start with the Corby roof
A survey in Corby starts with three things from you. Give us the postcode, the approximate roof area and, if you can get it from your supplier, twelve months of half hourly readings. What comes back is a usable area figure per block, output modelled against your own load rather than an average, and the ways a Corby school can pay for it.
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 Corby schools
- How much would a school roof near Corby generate?
- Modelled at 892 kWh per kWp a year, a 170 kWp array on a Corby school models at about 151,600 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 Corby?
- It goes somewhere, just not into the timetable. 25.6 percent of the Corby 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 Corby school?
- Applications go to National Grid Electricity Distribution, who run the network across Northamptonshire. 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 North Northamptonshire 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 North Northamptonshire on siting and design. Listed buildings and conservation areas are the usual exceptions. We put the position to North Northamptonshire before a design is finalised.
- How many schools are there around Corby?
- North Northamptonshire has 144 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 56,109 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.