100 more schools get solar.
£58,600 a year each.
On 31 July the Department for Education added up to £40m for 100 more schools under the Great British Energy solar programme. 245 schools already have panels. The savings per school are bigger than most people would guess.
☀️ The numbers
About £58,600 a year saved for a typical secondary school. About £21,000 for a primary. That includes LED lighting fitted at the same time.
The 245 schools already done are expected to save £220m over the life of the kit. The whole programme, covering schools, NHS sites and military sites, is £255m.
A separate 150 school pilot is being run with private funding.
🧮 Why schools are the perfect solar customer
They use most of their electricity in the day, in term time, when the sun is out. Very little goes to waste.
A house is the opposite. Peak use is 5pm to 9pm, after the panels have clocked off. That is why a home with solar and no battery still buys most of its electricity from the grid.
The lesson for households is not to skip solar. It is that timing matters as much as the panels. Run the dishwasher at 1pm, not 7pm.
🏠 What this means at home
Britain now has about 1.7 million homes with solar. Most export at midday for a few pence a unit and buy back at teatime for 26p.
Closing that gap is where the money is. A battery does it. So does moving load. So does letting the grid pay you to shift when it asks.
A school saving £58,600 a year on panels is a good headline. A household with panels earning nothing at midday is the more common story. Same sun. Different timing.