Specialist solar panels for schools in Wellingborough
A school roof in Wellingborough makes 5.9 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 896 kWh per kWp a year. The worked example below runs at 210 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 Wellingborough- 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 Wellingborough models at 896 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,145 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). Against a mean of 886 kWh per kWp across the towns we cover, Wellingborough is unremarkable, which is the useful finding: the scheme will be decided by the load curve, not the map.
Scaled up, a 210 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 15 miles away at Bedford, models at about 188,200 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 624 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 48,400 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 9,400 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.
Wellingborough ranks 3 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 Wellingborough
The Renewable Energy Planning Database holds no school scheme for the NN8 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 Wellingborough, at Bedford: 210 kWp at Bedford School, De Parys Avenue, applicant Bedford School, which is with the planning authority. That is someone else's application, not ours, and it is here because it shows what Bedfordshire planning has already accepted at an education site. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
The summer holiday problem for a Wellingborough school
25.7 percent of the annual output modelled for Wellingborough 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.
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 Wellingborough as anywhere else.
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.
The conclusion is not that a Wellingborough 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 National Grid Electricity Distribution 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 | 24 | 15 | 9 |
| Feb | 15 | 39 | 21 | 18 |
| Mar | 21 | 73 | 49 | 24 |
| Apr | 12 | 103 | 41 | 62 |
| May | 17 | 121 | 66 | 55 |
| Jun | 21 | 122 | 85 | 37 |
| Jul | 11 | 124 | 44 | 80 |
| Aug | 0 | 106 | 0 | 106 |
| Sep | 20 | 82 | 55 | 27 |
| Oct | 17 | 51 | 28 | 23 |
| Nov | 21 | 30 | 21 | 9 |
| Dec | 15 | 21 | 10 | 11 |
| Year | 190 | 896 | 435 | 461 |
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. That is 5.5 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 National Grid Electricity Distribution
Connections around Wellingborough 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).
Start with the Wellingborough roof
The first survey answers three questions at once: what the roofs carry, what they generate against your own timetable, and how a Wellingborough 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 Wellingborough schools
- Is there enough sun around Wellingborough for this to be worth doing?
- The model gives 896 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 210 kWp array comes out at roughly 188,200 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 624 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 Wellingborough school waste its generation in August?
- 25.7 percent of the modelled annual output for Wellingborough 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 Wellingborough accept the export?
- National Grid Electricity Distribution is the distribution network operator for Northamptonshire. 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 Wellingborough?
- Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from North Northamptonshire 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 Wellingborough?
- 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.