Specialist solar panels for schools in Bedworth

School rooftop solar across Warwickshire

A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Bedworth models at 866 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,106 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). Bedworth sits 2 percent under our mean. Worth knowing, but not decisive: how well the array matches the timetable moves the answer further than the latitude does.

Scaled up, a 290 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 4 miles away at Nuneaton, models at about 251,100 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 861 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 64,800 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 12,600 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 Bedworth

No school or college solar scheme appears in the CV12 postcode district in the Renewable Energy Planning Database. That is a reporting threshold rather than a verdict. The database records generating stations from one megawatt upward reliably and smaller ones patchily, and almost every school array is a fraction of that, so a roof full of panels on a Bedworth secondary could be generating today without ever reaching it.

The nearest education scheme on the record is 4 miles from Bedworth, at Nuneaton: 290 kWp at North Warwickshire College, Hinckley Road, applicant North Warwickshire South Leicestershire College, which holds consent and is awaiting construction. That is someone else's application, not ours, and it is here because it shows what Warwickshire planning has already accepted at an education site. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.

The summer holiday problem for a Bedworth school

25.8 percent of the annual output modelled for Bedworth 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. July is the single strongest month here at 14 percent of the annual total, and it falls almost entirely inside the holiday.

The inverse holds at the other end. December and January together return only 5 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 6.1 times as much in July as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 5.1 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.

The weekly pattern repeats the annual one. Saturdays and Sundays generate as well as any other day and consume almost nothing, so before storage or export is even discussed it is worth knowing what the site does at a weekend, which only half hourly data will tell you.

None of that makes a Bedworth 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 full treatment of the school year against the generation curve 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 Warwickshire, 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 Warwickshire the planning database records 94 solar schemes totalling 1201 MW, of which 18 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).

How many schools Nuneaton and Bedworth has

Nuneaton and Bedworth has 52 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 20,018 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.

The split is 37 primary, 8 secondary, 5 special and 2 further education, at an average of 385 pupils a site. Read 4.6 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 Bedworth schools

How much would a school roof near Bedworth generate?

Modelled at 866 kWh per kWp a year, a 290 kWp array on a Bedworth school models at about 251,100 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 Bedworth?

It goes somewhere, just not into the timetable. 25.8 percent of the Bedworth 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 Bedworth school?

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

What does Nuneaton and Bedworth require for solar on a school building?

Roof-mounted solar on a non-domestic building often falls within permitted development under Part 14 of the General Permitted Development Order, subject to limits on how far the panels stand proud of the roof plane and, above a threshold, to prior approval from Nuneaton and Bedworth on siting and design. Listed buildings and conservation areas are the usual exceptions. We put the position to Nuneaton and Bedworth before a design is finalised.

How many schools are there around Bedworth?

Nuneaton and Bedworth has 52 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 20,018 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 Nuneaton
• School roofs in Rugby
• School roofs in Warwick
• School roofs in Stratford-upon-Avon
• School roofs in Kenilworth
• School roofs in Leamington Spa

All Warwickshire locations