FAQs
These are some of our most common questions. Each site is unique, and we recommend getting in touch to send us some basic information about your school/organisation. We can then send you further details including our typical process from assessment to operations.
Site suitability
Yes! Our planet is in a state of climate emergency, desperately needing our help to make proactive changes to lower greenhouse gas emissions. By installing solar panels on the roof of your buildings, you are able to both generate and consume low carbon electricity on the same site - this is the most efficient way of using energy because it doesn't have to travel and be re-distributed.
Have a look at our carbon and impact calculator to see what a difference we have collectively made so far - we will send you an estimate of your own projected savings as part of our assessment.
This is slightly more complicated, but yes. We may have to add an additional meter and look more closely at your consumption to ensure we size the scheme correctly. If you have solar already, make sure to send us all the information you have on the existing system.
We have a structural engineer inspect all roofs prior to installation and we will not install without their approval. Not all roofs are found to be suitable, in which case we will try to identify other suitable roofs at your site to enable you to proceed.
Ownership and insurance of the panels
Schools' Energy Co-operative pays for the panels. It raises the money by issuing
community shares, and has a share raise most years. Community shares are invested in by members of the public. We seek to involve the public close to the school where possible.
Schools' Energy Co-operative will own the panels for the length of the agreement, usually 25 years. After this, they will be gifted to the school in situ. They are likely to still have many more years of life in them.
Schools' Energy Co-operative is owned by around 700 members of the public and over 100 of our site members, most of which are schools (as you might guess!). All members are treated equally and have one vote each. We pay interest on the shares held by our public members and schools, but our profits are paid only to the schools. The public who support us are often residents near to our site members, investing to support their local community to tackle climate change and reduce carbon emissions.
Schools' Energy Co-operative insures the panels for public liability. We ask our sites to add the panels to their contents/ buildings policies for damage/loss if practical, as we have found this to be most economical overall. This is normally done at a nominal cost. If there are any questions, we are happy to help here.
If you have the money upfront then this is an option, but we have experience in installing, managing and monitoring installations which would be difficult for a single school to replicate. Some schools contribute towards the cost (particularly on new roofs), in which case they receive a lower price for electricity.
Installation
Yes, we make sure our contractors have had a DBS check before working on school sites.
This depends on the size of the scheme, a small 20 kWp scheme may take 3 days, whereas a 200 kWp scheme fitted across multiple roofs can take over 2 weeks.
Some sites do lend themselves to term time installation better than others, but where this isn’t practical, we will look for a holiday installation date. We can be flexible on installation dates, if we have plenty of notice.
Billing and payments
This varies depending on the price we charge you for power, the price you pay your electricity supplier and the size of your system. We are fair to you, so an easy to install system with high internal consumption will pay less for electricity from us than a difficult to install system, or one where a lot of the generated electricity is exported. We need to assess your site first before offering a price for the power.
All businesses – including community owned social enterprises like us – need to make a profit. Co-operatives, like us, are different in that they return the profit to their customers (our schools in this case), not their shareholders. This approach reduces risk to the Co-op by reducing the risk of under charging, and avoids a school being overcharged, since all profits are returned to the school.
The co-op sends a quarterly bill for electricity that has been consumed on site.
The electricity which is used on site from the solar panels will not be recorded by your main electricity company meter, so that bill will reduce. We meter and invoice your use of electricity from the solar panels. Our bill is very straightforward – just your consumption multiplied by the agreed price per unit. There are no standing charges or other charges from us.
Operations, maintenance and repairs
We will monitor the performance of the panels throughout the contract period. We do this by taking meter readings remotely, but we may ask the school to take a meter reading from time to time to verify the online meter readings are correct. If there is a problem with the generation, the Co-op are responsible for getting the panels fixed and we’ll work with you to find a suitable time for a contractor to attend and rectify any issues.
Schools' Energy Co-operative will, for as long as we own the panels.
We will work with you to resolve such issues. If the roof repair is not related to the solar panels, the school will be responsible for the cost associated with removing and reinstalling the panels as part of the roofing project.
End of agreement period
We give the panels to the school. The panels will continue generating, providing the site with free electricity for many more years. If you wish, the Co-op will continue to monitor and maintain the panels for you for a modest fee to cover our costs. Eventually, decommissioning will be required but we hope this will be a repowering (installing new panels/inverters etc.) as we do not see the need for low carbon electricity ending. The obvious time to do this is when replacing the roof.
There is no point in taking the panels down after 25 years. They are very long lived, will have been maintained, and at that stage generate free electricity for the school. We have already passed the 10-year mark with some of our early sites and the panels have barely degraded, less than our initial projection.
If, despite that, the school wishes to have the flexibility to ask us to remove the panels after 25 years at our cost, we will include that provision in the contract; to do this, the school’s profit share will be retained to build up a reserve sufficient to meet the cost of removal.
You can buy the panels at any time, which brings the contract to an end. We apply a small mark-up to the depreciated cost of the panels to cover the cost of our project management and community share raising work. If you buy the panels, we suggest you consider asking us to continue monitoring them. Solar panels which are unmonitored often underperform. It is unlikely a single school will have the resources to monitor the panels, whereas The Schools' Energy Co-operative monitors over 100 solar sites, enabling rapid detection of problems should they arise.