The Government has named the 500 schools in line for rooftop solar panels under a $30 million programme, although the first on-site checks are not due until December and the installations will be spread over three years.
Energy Minister Simeon Brown and Education Minister Erica Stanford released the list on Monday at Te Papapa School in Auckland, the first school to have panels installed as part of a pilot for the Solar on Schools programme funded in Budget 2026. The full list is published on the Beehive website and on the Ministry of Education site.
Of the 500 schools, 340 are in the North Island, 157 are in the South Island and three are in the Chathams. “Today’s announcement moves the programme from planning into delivery to help lower power costs for schools,” Brown said. He said the schools “will benefit from this practical, forward-looking initiative that turns sunshine into savings and gives power back to schools”, and that the work would “support regional and local businesses” and let the industry build capability.
Auckland has the largest share with 80 schools, followed by Canterbury with 71, Wellington with 52 and Waikato with 47. Manawatū-Whanganui has 41, Otago 37, Northland 36 and Bay of Plenty 35. Hawke’s Bay has 22, Southland 16, Taranaki 14 and Gisborne 13. Nelson has nine, and Marlborough, Tasman and the West Coast have eight each. The three Chatham Islands schools are on the list, which matters more there than almost anywhere else given the islands run on their own small generation network rather than the national grid.
Schools were picked because they are dealing with energy or fuel insecurity, are facing higher energy costs, are scheduled to have gas or diesel boilers replaced, or need greater energy resilience. That last group is the interesting one. A school with panels and a battery can keep lights, phones and a freezer running when the lines go down, which is why so many schools end up as civil defence centres after storms.
Stanford said generating power on school roofs would “cut schools’ electricity use from the grid, reduce emissions, and lower their power bills at the same time”. She said large schools were “expected to save around $8,000 a year on average on electricity, freeing up money that can be spent on teaching and learning”, and that the panels would give students “a real-world example of renewable energy in action, right there at their own school”.
The systems are modest by commercial standards. The Government’s own regional table shows 294 of the 500 schools are pencilled in for a 10 kilowatt system, which is roughly what a large family home with an electric car might install. Another 57 are down for 20 kilowatts, 52 for 30 kilowatts and 64 for 50 kilowatts. Only 33 schools are in line for a 110 kilowatt system. The Ministry of Education says the sizing is deliberate and that systems are matched to what a school uses during the day rather than built to export power to the grid.
Up to 150 of the schools will also get energy management systems, which monitor and shift consumption, and some will get batteries where officials expect the biggest savings or the greatest resilience benefit. An Expression of Interest is now live on the Government Electronic Tenders Service seeking planners, designers and installers, with planning and design contracts expected to be awarded by December and on-site assessments starting from the same month.
There are two caveats worth reading in the fine print. Schools get the systems at no cost, but the programme will not pay for any property upgrades or remediation the roof needs first, and school roofs are one of the oldest parts of the state’s property portfolio. Being on the list also does not guarantee a school takes part, because eligibility is confirmed only after the on-site suitability assessment. Some of the 500 will fall away.
The arithmetic is worth doing as well. Split evenly, $30 million across 500 schools is about $60,000 a school, which is consistent with the small system sizes in the table. The $8,000 annual saving applies to large schools, so most participants will save less than that. The money comes from two places, with $20 million from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority’s Community Renewable Energy Fund and $10 million from the Ministry of Education.
The programme lands in a year when household and business solar has been growing faster than most people realise. New Zealand quietly passed one gigawatt of local solar generation in July, and officials have separately recommended legalising plug-in solar for renters and apartment dwellers, a change that would open up rooftop and balcony generation to people who cannot install a full system.
Solar is also shaping up as an election-year dividing line rather than a consensus. In July the Green Party set out a much larger renewables package built around a new Crown entity, zero-interest solar loans and public housing installations. Co-leader Marama Davidson said the plan would “put solar on more than half of all public homes within four years, and invest $80 million in renewable energy for Māori housing”. Against a $980 million proposal, $30 million for schools is a small first step, which is roughly how the Government has framed it, as a move from planning into delivery rather than a transformation.
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Is your local school on the list, and would you rather see the money go on panels or on fixing the roofs underneath them? Leave a comment below and tell us what you think.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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