Specialist solar panels for schools in Hay on Wye

Solar for education buildings across Powys

A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Hay on Wye models at 838 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,067 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is about 5 percent below the mean across the towns we cover, so the case at this latitude rests almost entirely on using the output on site rather than exporting it.

Scaled up, a 160 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 46 miles away at Cheltenham, models at about 134,100 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 475 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 34,700 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 6,000 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.

School solar on record near Hay on Wye

The Renewable Energy Planning Database holds no school scheme for Hay on Wye and the area around it. 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.

Look 46 miles out and there is one: Ladies College Swimming Pool, Malvern Road in Cheltenham, 160 kWp, applied for by Ladies College Swimming Pool, which holds consent and is awaiting construction. None of our doing. It is a public planning record, and the nearest evidence available of how an application like yours is treated around here. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.

Term dates against the Hay on Wye generation curve

A Hay on Wye school roof generates most in the weeks its buildings are closed. 25.9 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. July is the single strongest month here at 14.1 percent of the annual total, and it falls almost entirely inside the holiday.

Winter reverses it. December and January between them return 4.5 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 6.6 times as much in July as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 5.5 to one. 75 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 Hay on Wye 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 Hay on Wye 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 complete version of the term time arithmetic on the home page, and what it does to a payback figure under costs.

Grid connection through National Grid Electricity Distribution

National Grid Electricity Distribution 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 Powys the planning database records 18 solar schemes totalling 39 MW, of which 1 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).

Hay on Wye school solar, answered

What would a 160 kWp array produce at a Hay on Wye school?

Yes, and the figure matters more than the sunshine. 838 kWh per kWp a year puts a 160 kWp array at around 134,100 kWh, on roughly 475 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 Hay on Wye?

Less is wasted than governors expect, but the figure is worth seeing: 25.9 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 National Grid Electricity Distribution.

Who do we apply to for export near Hay on Wye?

Only National Grid Electricity Distribution 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.