Morpeth School

Solar PV • Site-owned • Completed August 2020

About

Morpeth School is a co-educational school for 11- to 18-year-olds with nearly 1200 pupils situated in Bethnal Green. The school has been mainly rebuilt with the last building programme being completed in 2013. The modern buildings provided numerous flat roofs capable of supporting 126 kWp of panels.

Funding & delivery

PUNL analysed historical electricity consumption data which indicated a Monday to Friday daytime hourly base load of 150-200 kW during term times, 100 kW during holidays and a weekend load of between 60 and 100 kW, indicating plenty of scope of PV. 

Quotes were sought and a 124 kWp array supplying 100 kW of inverters was selected. 

The school were successful in obtaining a grant from their local council, Tower Hamlets, and from Salix Finance, a company funded by the Government to provide interest free loans to the public sector to improve energy efficiency, carbon reductions and lower energy bills.

The system was installed and commissioned in August 2020.

Benefits & impact

The system is expected to generate 106 MWh/y, saving 24.8 tonnes of CO2 emissions. If all of the electricity generated is consumed by the school then the annual cost saving is over £15,000.

Project deliverables

Planning permissionN/A
EPC certificateN/A
DNODistrict Network Operator (UKPN) approved the connection on 22 May 2020
Structural surveyUsing the original calculations contained within the building manual, the loads were confirmed acceptable in June 2020.
On-site demand Half-hourly data was obtained and analysed
DisplayAt the time of writing (September 2020) the specification for the display is under discussion.
Feed-in tariff/PPAN/A
InstallationThe project was completed in August 2020
Performance monitoring (TBA)