Specialist solar panels for schools in Stafford

Schools near Stafford already on the planning record

The Renewable Energy Planning Database records 1 school and college solar scheme in the ST17 postcode district. At Stafford Manor High School, Rising Brook, a secondary school, a 150 kWp roof mounted array holds consent and is awaiting construction. The applicant on record is eEnergy Group PLC.

We had nothing to do with any of them. They are public planning records, and they are on this page because the useful question for a governing body is not whether school solar works in the abstract but whether it has been consented nearby. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.

The site plan at the top of this page is a generic estate drawn to show scale and sequencing. It is not Stafford Manor High School, Rising Brook, and it is not any other building in Stafford. We hold no drawings, roof data or consumption data for the schools named above.

The median array applied for here is 150 kWp. At 150 kWp you are covering roughly 446 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 secondary school, which is worth knowing: a secondary site normally has a sports hall, a dining block and several flat roofs, which is where the usable area comes from.

School rooftop solar across Staffordshire

A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Stafford models at 842 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,077 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). 5 percent below our mean puts Stafford 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 150 kWp array, sized to the median array applied for at schools around Stafford itself, models at about 126,300 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 446 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 32,500 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 5,800 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.

The summer holiday problem for a Stafford school

25.7 percent of the annual output modelled for Stafford 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 13.9 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 4.6 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 6.5 times as much in May as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 5.5 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.

Put the two calendars together and roughly 49 percent of a school's generation nationally lands on a session day, against about 71 percent for a business open every weekday. That gap is the whole difference between appraising a school roof and appraising any other commercial one, and it barely moves from town to town.

Inside the day it happens again. The roof is still at three quarters of its peak at four in the afternoon, by which time a Stafford school is largely empty, so the hours that look best on a generation chart are the worst on a consumption one.

None of that makes a Stafford scheme a bad one. It changes what the scheme should be: sized against the base load that runs whether or not the school is open, which on most sites is servers, comms, catering refrigeration, ventilation and hot water, with lettings, holiday clubs and summer works added on top. Where that base load is thin, the choices are storage, an export arrangement through National Grid Electricity Distribution, or a smaller array that consumes nearly everything it makes.

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

Connections around Stafford 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 Staffordshire the planning database records 118 solar schemes totalling 1054 MW, of which 17 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).

How many schools Stafford has

Stafford has 62 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 17,595 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.

The split is 49 primary, 9 secondary and 4 special, at an average of 284 pupils a site. Read 5.4 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.

Questions governors ask us about Stafford schools

What would a 150 kWp array produce at a Stafford school?

Yes, and the figure matters more than the sunshine. 842 kWh per kWp a year puts a 150 kWp array at around 126,300 kWh, on roughly 446 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 Stafford?

Less is wasted than governors expect, but the figure is worth seeing: 25.7 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 Stafford?

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.

Do we need planning permission in South Staffordshire?

Often not, because panels on the roof of a school building usually sit within permitted development for non-domestic buildings. The exceptions are listed buildings, conservation areas and arrays that project too far above the roof plane, and larger schemes still need prior approval from South Staffordshire. We confirm it either way.

Has a school near ST17 already done this?

One school scheme is on record in this postcode district, including a 150 kWp array at Stafford Manor High School, Rising Brook that holds consent and is awaiting construction. 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 Stafford?

Stafford has 62 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 17,595 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.

Nearby

• School roofs in Stoke-on-Trent
• School roofs in Newcastle-under-Lyme
• School roofs in Burton upon Trent
• School roofs in Tamworth
• School roofs in Cannock
• School roofs in Lichfield

All Staffordshire locations