Energy Saving Tips for UK Schools
It’s no secret that UK Schools have been hit hard by funding cuts and finding ways of reducing costs is one of the few ways to redirect funding to vital learning equipment and resources.
Some energy saving requires investment in equipment, other savings can be made relatively easily.
If we start with these 9 easy and free/really cheap tips first:
1. Engage the children – awareness about Climate change is growing, you can even get UN Climate change teachers to come in and give a talk. Once the Children understand the importance of their own actions, they are more likely to assist with positive changes.
2. Use natural light as much as possible, only use lights when needed.
3. Turn all equipment like TV’s and computer off at the end of the day, consider fitting low-cost timers on the plug sockets. School hours are regular so this would be easy to do with simple manual timers.
4. Keep classroom doors closed to stop warm air escaping or cold air come in.
5. Encourage good recycling sorting practices, this may not save the school energy but it helps create a mentality around and is goo for the planet as a whole. Considering and being aware of waste can create a better attitude in general.
6. Encourage children to bring in their own tea towel for drying hands, paper towels are very costly and damaging to the environment. Failing that at least encourage minimal number of towels to be used, people often don’t ascribe a value to them and are quite wasteful, picking up 3 or 4 at a time.
7. Install hand dryers in the washrooms, some companies will fit them for free and charge you purely out of the savings. Once the costs have been covered the energy efficient hand dryers are yours and cost only a few £’s to run each year. In a large school this can me thousands of £’s in savings.
8. Use less water. There are free device like aerators that your water company will provide. Sensor taps will also to minimise water waste and again companies will help finance from the savings.
9. Get inventive - A teacher friend of mine has been doing ecobrick sessions with his children. Ecobricks are a great way of reusing unrecyclable plastics as building materials. He has been able to build benches and create draft excluders which have saved the school money.
If you are going to invest, check out the funding available. There are schemes like Salix funding that help pay for the cost of energy efficient equipment for schools. Often energy consultants will help you identify cost savings and where funding can be accessed from, we can make a number of recommendations for independent energy consultants if you want to get in contact.
Some obvious savings come from investing in:
1. Insulation of walls and roofs
2. Sealed windows and doors
3. LED lighting
4. Heat source heating systems
5. Eco ventilation systems
6. Solar and wind generated energy
7. Voltage optimisers
8. Monitoring systems that allow over-use to be identified and rectified
9. Timer switches on all electrical equipment
10. Centralised energy control
11. Energy efficient heating systems
We hope you find this article is useful and welcome your comments, additional information that can help others. We are a distributor of hand dryers for schools which is a really easy way of saving thousands without upfront costs.
