Specialist solar panels for schools in Weybridge
What decides a solar scheme at a Weybridge school is how much of the output the site uses itself, not how much the roof makes. We arrange the roof survey, model the output against the school's own half hourly consumption, and set out the funding routes.
905 kWh per kWp a year at this latitude, so a 490 kWp array, the size applied for at the nearest school scheme on record, models at about 443,500 kWh. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in Weybridge- 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 for education buildings across Surrey
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Weybridge models at 905 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,161 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 490 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 11 miles away at Windsor, models at about 443,500 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 1,455 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 114,000 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 22,600 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.
Weybridge ranks 6 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.
School solar on record near KT13
There is no school entry for the KT13 postcode district in the Renewable Energy Planning Database. The register is dependable for anything from a megawatt upward and incomplete below it, and a school array is usually nearer a fifth of a megawatt, so this says more about the threshold than about Weybridge.
Look 11 miles out and there is one: St Johns Beaumont School, Priest Hill in Windsor, 260 kWp, applied for by St Johns Beaumont School, which was refused. 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 Weybridge generation curve
A Weybridge school roof generates most in the weeks its buildings are closed. 25.7 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 percent of the annual total, and it falls almost entirely inside the holiday.
Winter reverses it. December and January between them return 5.1 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 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.
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 Weybridge as anywhere else.
And the week has the same hole in it. Two days in seven the site is closed altogether, at no cost to the generation, which is part of why the session day share sits where it does. Weekend lettings are the one lever a Weybridge school has over that, and they are worth counting properly.
The conclusion is not that a Weybridge 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 UK Power Networks 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.
- 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 | 25 | 16 | 9 |
| Feb | 15 | 38 | 20 | 18 |
| Mar | 21 | 72 | 49 | 23 |
| Apr | 12 | 104 | 42 | 62 |
| May | 17 | 121 | 66 | 55 |
| Jun | 21 | 125 | 88 | 38 |
| Jul | 11 | 127 | 45 | 82 |
| Aug | 0 | 106 | 0 | 106 |
| Sep | 20 | 83 | 55 | 28 |
| Oct | 17 | 52 | 29 | 23 |
| Nov | 21 | 31 | 22 | 9 |
| Dec | 15 | 21 | 10 | 11 |
| Year | 190 | 905 | 442 | 463 |
Elmbridge schools, phase by phase
Elmbridge has 38 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 17,090 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 28 primary, 6 secondary, 2 special and 2 further education, at an average of 450 pupils a site. A ratio of 4.7 to one tells you where the roof area is. It is not with the 28 primaries, which mostly offer a hall and a teaching block each, but with the larger sites that were built with a sports hall and a dining block attached.
Where a multi-academy trust holds several of those sites, surveying the estate in one pass beats taking a roof at a time. The design work, the connection applications and the procurement paperwork are the same job repeated, and a trust that runs them together gets a better answer on all three.
Grid connection through UK Power Networks
Connections around Weybridge 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).
Book a roof survey at your Weybridge school
Roof condition decides the order of works on most school estates, so that is where we start. Send us the postcode and a rough roof area, with twelve months of half hourly readings if you have them, and we come back with usable area, modelled output against your own load, and the funding routes.
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.
Weybridge school solar, answered
- Is there enough sun around Weybridge for this to be worth doing?
- The model gives 905 kWh a year for every kWp installed at this latitude, so a 490 kWp array comes out at roughly 443,500 kWh a year before shading. It needs about 1,455 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 Weybridge school waste its generation in August?
- 25.7 percent of the modelled annual output for Weybridge 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 Weybridge 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 Weybridge?
- Usually permitted development covers a roof array on a school, with prior approval from Elmbridge 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 Weybridge?
- Elmbridge has 38 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 17,090 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.