With budgets under pressure, reducing energy use can make a real difference to schools. But knowing where to start can sometimes feel overwhelming.
The good news is that improving energy efficiency doesn’t necessarily mean investing immediately in solar panels, new heating systems or major building upgrades. Understanding how your school currently uses energy, spotting where it is being wasted and making relatively small changes can be a powerful place to start.
1. Start by understanding where your energy goes
Before deciding what to change, it helps to build a clear picture of how your school uses energy.
Energy use can come from lots of different places, including:
- Space and water heating
- Lighting
- Computers, interactive whiteboards and other IT
- Ventilation and cooling
- Catering equipment
- Specialist equipment, such as kilns
- Maintenance equipment
Heating is particularly important. Space heating can account for around 45 to 58% of a typical school’s total energy consumption, while lighting alone can account for around 10% of total energy use. Knowing where your biggest areas of consumption are allows you to concentrate your time and budget where they are likely to make the greatest difference.
2. Get to know your energy data
You don’t need an elaborate monitoring system to get started.
Begin by finding out who has access to your school’s energy information. This might be your site manager, business manager, finance team or whoever manages your utility bills.
Useful sources can include:
- Electricity and gas bills
- Supplier reports and invoices
- Smart meter dashboards
- Manual meter readings
- Building management systems
- Delivery records for fuels such as heating oil
When looking at bills, concentrate on the amount of energy used, measured in kilowatt hours (kWh), rather than simply the total cost. Remember that your school may also have several meters, particularly if buildings have been extended or added over time. Try bringing your information together into a simple spreadsheet. Tracking usage month by month gives you a baseline against which you can monitor future changes.
Look at when you’re using energy
If your electricity meter provides half-hourly data, this can be particularly helpful. Rather than only knowing how much electricity was consumed during a month, you can see when it was being consumed.
Look for energy use:
- Overnight
- After staff and pupils have gone home
- At weekends
- During school holidays
If electricity use remains surprisingly high when the school is empty, you’ve found a good place to start investigating.
3. Hunt down energy waste
Once you understand the data, investigate what’s actually happening around the school. One of the simplest approaches is an energy walkaround. Walk through classrooms, corridors, offices, kitchens and communal areas and look for unnecessary energy use. Even better, involve pupils and turn it into a practical activity.
Look out for:
- Lights on in empty rooms
- Monitors and interactive displays left on
- Printers and other equipment left running
- Unnecessary standby use
- Catering equipment switched on earlier than needed
- Heating in unused areas
- Windows open while heating is running
- Radiators blocked by furniture
- Heating, hot water or lighting operating outside school hours
Try conducting another walkaround once everyone has left. You may be surprised by how much equipment is still running. Don’t forget your cleaning and site teams either. They’re often in the building outside normal teaching hours and may already know where lights, equipment or heating are regularly being left on.
4. Take control of heating
Heating is one of the biggest areas to investigate because relatively simple problems can result in unnecessary energy use.
Is the school being heated when nobody is there?
Check evenings, weekends, bank holidays and school holidays rather than assuming existing timers are correct.
Are all areas being heated appropriately?
A timetable that works for the main building may not suit every part of the school, particularly where your site has been extended or different heating systems are in use.
Are people constantly changing thermostats?
Turning a thermostat right up doesn’t make a room heat up faster. Instead, it can result in the room becoming warmer than necessary and using additional energy.
Is the building itself causing problems?
Look for draughty doors and windows, poorly positioned thermostats, blocked radiators and issues such as leaking gutters and damp external walls that could affect how efficiently your building retains heat. Energy efficiency shouldn’t come at the expense of good ventilation and indoor air quality. Schools need to balance heat loss with the need for sufficient fresh air, particularly in spaces that rely on natural ventilation.
5. Make better use of lighting
Lighting is another area where straightforward changes can help.
- Open blinds when appropriate and make the most of daylight
- Keep windows and skylights clean
- Switch lights off in empty rooms
- Avoid unnecessarily lighting parts of a room with good natural light
- Check whether external lighting is operating when it isn’t required
Where investment is possible, consider replacing older lighting with LEDs, particularly where fluorescent lighting is still being used. LEDs typically use considerably less energy and last longer, helping to reduce both running and replacement costs. Occupancy and daylight sensors can take this further by ensuring lights are only used when they’re needed.
6. Get the whole school involved
Technology can help, but some of the most accessible opportunities are about behaviour. A few people trying to save energy will only get you so far. A whole-school approach can turn lots of small actions into everyday habits.
- Appointing pupil and staff energy champions
- Creating student-led energy walkarounds
- Displaying energy-saving reminders in key areas
- Sharing energy performance in assemblies
- Involving sustainability or Eco groups
- Discussing energy use at staff meetings
- Celebrating reductions in consumption
- Creating friendly competitions between classes or areas
Showing pupils the data can make the subject much more tangible. For example, a simple plug-in energy monitor can be used to investigate how much electricity different pieces of classroom equipment use. This turns energy management into a learning opportunity, rather than something that happens solely behind the scenes.
7. Think about longer-term improvements
Once you’ve addressed unnecessary energy use, you can start thinking about opportunities that require further investment. Depending on your school and building, these could include:
- LED lighting upgrades
- Solar PV
- Battery storage
- Improved insulation and glazing
- Smart building controls
- Heat pumps or other lower-energy heating systems
- Improved ventilation
- Sub-metering for different buildings or high-energy areas
But there’s an important principle to remember: understand and reduce your energy demand before investing in new technology. For example, tackling unnecessary electricity consumption before installing solar PV can help you understand the size of system your school actually needs. Likewise, heating shouldn’t be looked at in isolation. The condition of the building, insulation, controls and how different spaces are used all need to be considered when looking at longer-term changes. For significant capital projects, seek appropriate independent advice before committing to an investment.
Your school energy checklist
Not sure where to begin? Start with these five actions:
1. Find your data – Locate your recent electricity and heating data and identify the meters serving your site.
2. Create a baseline – Record your energy use so you have something to compare future performance against.
3. Check out-of-hours use – Look at evenings, weekends and holidays to identify energy being consumed when the building should be largely inactive.
4. Walk the school – Look for lights, heating, hot water and equipment being used unnecessarily.
5. Involve pupils and staff – Share what you find and choose a few simple behaviours that everyone can help change.
You don’t need to tackle everything at once. A simple approach is to measure, identify, act and review. Once you’ve made a change, keep monitoring your energy data to see whether it has worked.
Reducing energy use isn’t just about lowering bills. It can also help your school reduce its carbon emissions, involve pupils in practical sustainability activities and turn climate ambitions into measurable action.
About this article
This article is based on the learning from Save Energy, Save Money: Practical Steps for Schools webinar that was run with Climate Education’s sister programme Aspect Sustainability.
