Specialist solar panels for schools in Worcester
A school roof in Worcester makes 6.2 times as much in July as it does in December, and the school year runs against that curve rather than with it. What we come back with is the usable roof area, the modelled output against your meter data, and the routes schools use to pay for it.
141,100 kWh a year, modelled for a 160 kWp array on roughly 475 sqm of clear roof. That is the size applied for at the nearest school scheme on record. Source: EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss.
Book a roof survey in Worcester- 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.
School rooftop solar across Worcestershire
A one kilowatt-peak array on a shallow pitched roof in Worcester models at 882 kWh a year, from modelled irradiation of 1,132 kWh per square metre in the plane of the array (EU PVGIS v5.2, SARAH3, 10 degree pitch, 14 percent system loss). Against a mean of 886 kWh per kWp across the towns we cover, Worcester is unremarkable, which is the useful finding: the scheme will be decided by the load curve, not the map.
Scaled up, a 160 kWp array, sized to what the nearest school scheme on record applied for, 22 miles away at Cheltenham, models at about 141,100 kWh a year before shading, and needs roughly 475 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 36,100 kWh landing in July and August and roughly 6,900 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.
Worcester ranks 1 of 7 towns we cover in Worcestershire on modelled yield, against a national mean of 886 kWh per kWp. The county runs from 866 to 882, a spread of 16 kWh per kWp. Within Worcestershire that difference is small enough to ignore: where the building sits is not what decides this scheme, your consumption pattern is.
What the planning record shows around Worcester
The Renewable Energy Planning Database holds no school scheme for the WR4 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 nearest education scheme on the record is 22 miles from Worcester, at Cheltenham: 160 kWp at Ladies College Swimming Pool, Malvern Road, applicant Ladies College Swimming Pool, which holds consent and is awaiting construction. That is someone else's application, not ours, and it is here because it shows what Gloucestershire planning has already accepted at an education site. Source: Renewable Energy Planning Database, Q1 2026.
The summer holiday problem for a Worcester school
25.6 percent of the annual output modelled for Worcester 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 13.9 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 4.9 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 6.2 times as much in July as it does in December, and August alone outproduces December by about 5.2 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 Worcester 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 Worcester school has over that, and they are worth counting properly.
The conclusion is not that a Worcester 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 National Grid Electricity Distribution to earn its keep.
We set out the whole argument about term dates and the generation curve 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 | 39 | 21 | 18 |
| Mar | 21 | 73 | 49 | 24 |
| Apr | 12 | 102 | 41 | 61 |
| May | 17 | 120 | 66 | 54 |
| Jun | 21 | 121 | 85 | 36 |
| Jul | 11 | 123 | 44 | 79 |
| Aug | 0 | 103 | 0 | 103 |
| Sep | 20 | 81 | 54 | 27 |
| Oct | 17 | 49 | 27 | 22 |
| Nov | 21 | 28 | 20 | 8 |
| Dec | 15 | 20 | 10 | 10 |
| Year | 190 | 882 | 432 | 450 |
How many schools Worcester has
Worcester has 31 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register teaching 14,797 pupils between them. Source: DfE Get Information About Schools.
The split is 22 primary, 5 secondary, 3 special and 1 further education, at an average of 477 pupils a site. That is 4.4 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 National Grid Electricity Distribution
Connections around Worcester 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 Worcestershire the planning database records 62 solar schemes totalling 506 MW, of which 6 are operational (REPD Q1 2026).
Start with the Worcester roof
Lenzie Consulting Ltd arranges roof surveys for schools across Worcestershire. 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.
Questions governors ask us about Worcester schools
- How much would a school roof near Worcester generate?
- Modelled at 882 kWh per kWp a year, a 160 kWp array on a Worcester school models at about 141,100 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 Worcester?
- It goes somewhere, just not into the timetable. 25.6 percent of the Worcester 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 Worcester school?
- Applications go to National Grid Electricity Distribution, who run the network across Worcestershire. 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 Worcester 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 Worcester on siting and design. Listed buildings and conservation areas are the usual exceptions. We put the position to Worcester before a design is finalised.
- How many schools are there around Worcester?
- Worcester has 31 open state-funded schools and colleges on the DfE register, with 14,797 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.