Energy update: much progress made in reducing the school’s energy consumption
Happy Earth Day! In the spirit of improving our attitudes and actions towards the planet, Ms Sinclair celebrates all the efforts made by students and staff to reduce the school’s energy consumption.
With energy prices making eye-watering rises for most of us at the start of this month, and with the need for drastic reductions in our carbon emissions becoming more urgent than ever, the Estates team and Student Eco-Committee Energy Team have been working hard to cut our energy use where we can and to help students and staff understand the importance of saving energy.
Talking to the junior school
Last term, Alex, Chae Min and Katya (Y10) led an assembly in the Junior School. They keenly explained the importance of saving energy at school and at home as well as the benefits of Active Travel.
Ms Bond, the Junior School Eco-Coordinator, reports: “They did a great job. A number of teachers told me how good they thought the Assembly was and that they were particularly impressed by the way that they answered the questions at the end. I think they inspired lots of the younger girls.”
Changes made by Estates
Over Easter, the Estates team made considerable changes to the heating controls across the site. Wonderfully this resulted in huge reductions on our Energy use compared to last year’s Easter Holidays. Mr Ball, who helps manage the heating, explains:
“We dropped the temperature of the pool water and air temperature by 1.5 degrees and adjusted the timers on the heating across the whole site, reducing them down to only come on for one hour, so we were confident we would see a noticeable difference.”
Whilst it may not sound like much, heating is one of the most energy-intensive activities in any building, particularly the heating of water (think pools, central heating etc.).
An encouraging result
Now that the holidays are over, we can reveal the result of these changes, along with the considerable efforts of our staff and students to switch things off before they left for the break. They reduced our holiday electricity use by about a quarter, and our gas usage by over a third, compared with our usage last Easter holidays!
Whilst their achievements so far are impressive, neither team is ready to rest on their laurels just yet. With the results of the recent Energy Audit now under review, they will be looking carefully through it to identify their next targets for further savings. So, be sure to watch this space!