Specialist solar panels for schools in Epsom
A kilowatt-peak on a Epsom school roof models at 900 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.
900 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 190 kWp array, the size applied for at the nearest school scheme on record, models at about 171,000 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in Epsom- 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 Surrey
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Epsom models at 900 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,155 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). That sits within a few percent of the mean across the towns we cover, so what decides the scheme is the school's own demand pattern rather than where in the country it stands.
Scaled up, a 190 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 15 miles away at Crawley, models at about 171,000 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 564 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 43,800 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 8,600 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.
Epsom ranks 10 of 10 towns we cover in Surrey on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 900 to 916, a spread of 16 kWh per kWp. Within Surrey that difference is small enough to ignore: where the building sits is not what decides this scheme, your consumption pattern is.
The planning position for Epsom schools
The Renewable Energy Planning Database holds no school scheme for the KT18 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 15 miles away at Crawley: Oriel High School, a 190 kWp roof mounted array applied for by West Sussex County Council, which is generating. We were not involved in it. We cite it because it is a public record of what has cleared planning in this part of Sussex. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
Why demand in Epsom falls as the roof peaks
The generating year and the school year are out of step in Epsom. July and August carry 25.6 percent of the modelled output (EU PVGIS v5.2), and the site is closed for most of those nine weeks. June 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.
At the other end of the year the mismatch flips. Only 5 percent of output falls in December and January, the two months when a Epsom school is fully occupied and its heating and lighting are at their heaviest. The roof makes 6 times as much in June 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 Epsom changes that ratio much, but plenty about your own site changes what to do with it.
The daily curve does the same thing in miniature. Load drops sharply after about three o'clock, generation does not, so the last three hours of a summer afternoon are pushing into an empty building unless something absorbs them. Half hourly meter data is the only way to see how much.
A Epsom 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 | 24 | 15 | 9 |
| Feb | 15 | 37 | 20 | 17 |
| Mar | 21 | 72 | 49 | 23 |
| Apr | 12 | 105 | 42 | 63 |
| May | 17 | 120 | 66 | 54 |
| Jun | 21 | 125 | 88 | 38 |
| Jul | 11 | 125 | 44 | 81 |
| Aug | 0 | 105 | 0 | 105 |
| Sep | 20 | 83 | 55 | 28 |
| Oct | 17 | 51 | 28 | 23 |
| Nov | 21 | 30 | 21 | 9 |
| Dec | 15 | 21 | 10 | 11 |
| Year | 190 | 898 | 438 | 460 |
The school estate in Epsom and Ewell
Epsom and Ewell has 26 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 14,178 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 19 primary, 5 secondary, 1 special and 1 further education, at an average of 545 pupils a site. That is 3.8 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 Epsom 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 Surrey the planning database records 74 solar schemes totalling 182 MW, of which 6 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
Send us the school postcode
The first survey answers three questions at once: what the roofs carry, what they generate against your own timetable, and how a Epsom 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.
What Epsom trusts ask before a survey
- Is there enough sun around Epsom for this to be worth doing?
- The model gives 900 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 190 kWp array comes out at roughly 171,000 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 564 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 Epsom school waste its generation in August?
- 25.6 percent of the modelled annual output for Epsom 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 Epsom accept the export?
- UK Power Networks is the distribution network operator for Surrey. 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 Epsom?
- Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from Epsom and Ewell 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 Epsom?
- Epsom and Ewell has 26 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 14,178 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.