Around 200 schools and 200 NHS sites are to get new rooftop solar power thanks to a £200m investment from Great British Energy.

The first major project for Great British Energy, the investment is set to save hundreds of millions on energy bills. 

In England around £80m in funding will support around 200 schools, alongside £100m for nearly 200 NHS sites, covering a third of NHS trusts, to install rooftop solar panels that could power classrooms and operations, with potential to sell leftover energy back to the grid.

The first panels are expected to be in schools and hospitals by the end of summer 2025, saving schools money for the next academic year.

In addition, local authorities and community energy groups will also be supported by nearly £12m to help build local clean energy projects - from community-led onshore wind, to solar on rooftops and hydropower in rivers – that can help drive growth. These could generate profits which could then be reinvested into community projects or take money off people’s bills.

A further £9.3m will power schemes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland including community energy or rooftop solar for public buildings.

Schools and hospitals have been hit with rocketing energy bills in recent years, costing taxpayers millions of pounds and eating into school budgets. Great British Energy says this has been driven by the UK’s dependency on global fossil fuel markets.

The NHS is the single biggest public sector energy user, with an estimated annual energy bill of £1.4bn, that has more than doubled since 2019.

Great British Energy’s first investment could see millions invested back into frontline services, targeting deprived areas, with lifetime savings for schools and the NHS of up to £400m over around 30 years.

Estimates suggest that on average, a typical school could save up to £25,000 per year, whilst the average NHS site could save up to £45,000 per year on their annual energy bill if they had solar panels with complementary technologies installed such as batteries.

Great British Energy chair, Juergen Maier, said: “This is the first step in Great British Energy’s work with local communities to help them generate their own energy.

“By partnering with the public sector as we scale up the company, this will help us make an immediate impact as we work to roll out clean, homegrown energy projects, crowd in investment and create job opportunities across the country.

“We will work closely with communities to learn from the scheme so we can scale up energy projects across the country.”

Currently only about 20% of schools and under 10% of hospitals have solar panels installed, but the technology has huge potential to save money on bills.

For example, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust installed a solar canopy over the car park at its Wharfedale Hospital site that will reduce carbon emissions by 43.7 tonnes per year and save the trust £75,000 annually.

A large project at Hull University Teaching Hospital has 11,000 solar panels which saved it around £250,000 a month last summer.

The support will target schools and hospitals with buildings that are able to accommodate solar panels in areas of England most in need.

As part of this, government will select the schools which will be primarily clustered in areas of deprivation in the North-east, West Midlands and North-west, as well as at least 10 schools in each region.

Each cluster will include a further education college which will work with the contractors appointed to promote careers in renewables to support growth in the construction and renewables workforce. This could be through work placements, skills bootcamps and workshops.

Alongside this, the NHS ran an expression of interest process to identify the selected hospital sites, with installations managed by the NHS.