Specialist solar panels for schools in Llandrindod Wells

School rooftop solar across Powys

A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Llandrindod Wells models at 825 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,053 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). 7 percent below our mean puts Llandrindod Wells at the weaker end of the range, which raises the premium on self consumption and lowers the value of anything that leaves the site.

Scaled up, a 160 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 60 miles away at Cheltenham, models at about 132,000 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 33,700 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 5,500 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.

What the planning record shows around Llandrindod Wells

The Renewable Energy Planning Database holds no school scheme for Llandrindod Wells 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.

The nearest education scheme on the record is 60 miles from Llandrindod Wells, at Cheltenham: 160 kWp at Ladies College Swimming Pool, Malvern Road, applicant Ladies College Swimming Pool, which holds consent and is awaiting construction. That is someone else's application, not ours, and it is here because it shows what Gloucestershire planning has already accepted at an education site. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.

The summer holiday problem for a Llandrindod Wells school

25.5 percent of the annual output modelled for Llandrindod Wells 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. May is the strongest single month here at 14.1 percent of the annual total, which is still term time, and that works slightly in your favour against towns whose curve peaks in July.

The inverse holds at the other end. December and January together return only 4.2 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 7.3 times as much in May as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 6 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.

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.

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.

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 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 operates the distribution network across Powys, so the export application goes to them. Anything larger than 3.68 kW per phase falls under G99, which means an application before commissioning rather than a notification afterwards. A constrained network is not the end of a scheme. Capping export costs little when the building already absorbs most of what the roof produces.

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

Questions governors ask us about Llandrindod Wells schools

How much would a school roof near Llandrindod Wells generate?

Modelled at 825 kWh per kWp a year, a 160 kWp array on a Llandrindod Wells school models at about 132,000 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 Llandrindod Wells?

It goes somewhere, just not into the timetable. 25.5 percent of the Llandrindod Wells 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 Llandrindod Wells school?

Applications go to National Grid Electricity Distribution, who run the network across Powys. 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.