Specialist solar panels for schools in Newmarket
A kilowatt-peak on a Newmarket school roof models at 905 kWh a year, above the mean across the towns we cover, and the roofs it applies to are mostly carrying nothing. The survey records sheet type, remaining life, purlin spacing and the state of the incoming supply, and the model runs off your own meter data rather than an average.
905 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 1000 kWp array, the size applied for at the nearest school scheme on record, models at about 905,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in Newmarket- 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.
Solar PV for academy trusts across Suffolk
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Newmarket models at 905 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,157 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That is roughly 2 percent above the mean across the towns we cover, so latitude is working slightly in your favour here.
Scaled up, a 1,000 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 12 miles away at Cambridge, models at about 905,000 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 2,970 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 230,800 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 44,300 kWh across December and January. UK Power Networks 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.
Newmarket ranks 8 of 8 towns we cover in Suffolk on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 905 to 956, a spread of 51 kWh per kWp. On a 500 kWp array that is about 25,500 kWh a year between the strongest and weakest town in the county.
The planning position for Newmarket schools
The Renewable Energy Planning Database holds no school scheme for the CB8 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 closest recorded one is about 12 miles away at Cambridge: St Bedes Inter-Church School, a 1,000 kWp roof mounted array applied for by Solar Options for Schools, which holds consent and is awaiting construction. We were not involved in it. We cite it because it is a public record of what has cleared planning in this part of Cambridgeshire. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
Why demand in Newmarket falls as the roof peaks
The generating year and the school year are out of step in Newmarket. July and August carry 25.5 percent of the modelled output (EU PVGIS v5.2), and the site is closed for most of those nine weeks. July is the single strongest month here at 13.8 percent of the annual total, and it falls almost entirely inside the holiday.
At the other end of the year the mismatch flips. Only 4.9 percent of output falls in December and January, the two months when a Newmarket school is fully occupied and its heating and lighting are at their heaviest. The roof makes 6 times as much in July as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 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.
Summed over the year, about 49 percent of what a school roof makes arrives while the school is open. For a business trading every weekday the equivalent is roughly 71 percent. Nothing about Newmarket changes that ratio much, but plenty about your own site changes what to do with it.
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 Newmarket school is largely empty, so the hours that look best on a generation chart are the worst on a consumption one.
A Newmarket governing body should read that as a sizing constraint, not a reason to stop. The base load that runs through the holidays, servers, comms, refrigeration, ventilation and hot water, is the floor the array should be built up from, and everything above it has to be justified by storage, export or summer occupancy.
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.
- 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 | 23 | 15 | 8 |
| Feb | 15 | 38 | 20 | 18 |
| Mar | 21 | 73 | 49 | 24 |
| Apr | 12 | 106 | 42 | 64 |
| May | 17 | 122 | 67 | 55 |
| Jun | 21 | 124 | 87 | 37 |
| Jul | 11 | 125 | 44 | 81 |
| Aug | 0 | 106 | 0 | 106 |
| Sep | 20 | 84 | 56 | 28 |
| Oct | 17 | 52 | 29 | 23 |
| Nov | 21 | 31 | 22 | 9 |
| Dec | 15 | 21 | 10 | 11 |
| Year | 190 | 905 | 441 | 464 |
The school estate in West Suffolk
West Suffolk has 70 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 21,988 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 53 primary, 11 secondary, 4 special and 2 further education, at an average of 314 pupils a site. That is 4.8 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 UK Power Networks
Connections around Newmarket are handled by UK Power Networks, 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 Suffolk the planning database records 118 solar schemes totalling 1369 MW, of which 23 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
Send us the school postcode
Lenzie Consulting Ltd arranges roof surveys for schools across Suffolk. Send the school postcode and a rough idea of the roof area, and the last twelve months of half hourly meter data if the school holds it. We come back with what the roofs can carry, what they would generate against your own consumption, and the funding routes open to a school.
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.
What Newmarket trusts ask before a survey
- Is there enough sun around Newmarket for this to be worth doing?
- The model gives 905 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 1,000 kWp array comes out at roughly 905,000 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 2,970 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 Newmarket school waste its generation in August?
- 25.5 percent of the modelled annual output for Newmarket 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 UK Power Networks. We model all three against your half hourly data before an array is sized.
- Will the network around Newmarket accept the export?
- UK Power Networks is the distribution network operator for Suffolk. 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 Newmarket?
- Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from East Cambridgeshire 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 Newmarket?
- West Suffolk has 70 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 21,988 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.