Lean Green Eco Machine

Energy 2006 - 2007 (cont)

Clouds Energy Review

Over the last 3 years the Working Group has logged energy usage by the school and looked at ways to reduce it. In March we took the step of buying in the consultancy services of a company called Clouds environmental. They came in and spent the whole day at the school looking at how the school uses energy and identifying ways in which we could change our practice to use energy more efficiently. You can access the report by clicking on the link below:

Download cc20070804_nodehill_middle_school_final.doc

Mr Peace presented a synopsis of the work done on energy as part of the Eco-schools project and the proposals provided in the Clouds report to the Governors Grounds and Buildings committee in April. They were very complimentary about the work that has been going on thus far and suggested putting the Clouds proposals on the agenda for each meeting to look into achieving these proposals over time.

More Able Pupil Project

Mr Taylor and Mr Peace have been working with a group of More Able pupils from year 7 on a renewable energy project. The school recently bought an industrial wind turbine (obviously with a small turbine radius!) and solar panel to try and run some components in the science lab. Mr Taylor has been looking into the mathematics associated with deriving energy from the wind and tides, and Mr Peace will look into the geographical implications of using renewable energy resources. We propose that by the end of the summer term the pupils will produce a 10 minute documentary on renewable energy to show the school.

Energy 2006-2007

Pupils learn better in natural daylight!

We have continued our campaign to persuade teachers and pupils to turn off the lights when they are not in the room or there is enough daylight to use that. Government surveys have shown that pupils learn better in natural daylight than they do in artificial flourescent lighting.

Electricity usage by the school

We have continued to log the electricity usage of the school as shown here. It has been useful to identify trends in the data. 2006 has been the year in which we have used the most electricity and we have been looking into reasons why that may be.

We have recently had a Smartmeter installed which will allow us to access this data on-line in real-time rather than looking at bills when they come in and this will allow us to pinpoint times when electricity use is at its peak and why.

Gas usage by the school

We have continued to log the gas usage of the school as shown here based on data supplied by bills. The dataset has not been particularly reliable due to incomplete records and data which we hope will be addressed soon.

Energy saving lightbulbs

The Footprint Trust ran a stall at the Christmas Fayre to promote the work they do on the Island. They gave out free energy saving light bulbs to those who wanted them in order to publicise the fact that if we all swapped one normal bulb for an energy saving bulb then we could close one of our power stations down.

They gave out 45 light bulbs on the night which equates to 45 tonnes of carbon saved over their lifetime. This is based on the following calculation:

A 100 Watt bulb burning for an average 7 hours per day for 365 days per year uses over 250kW hours per year and produces 125 kilos of carbon.

A low energy bulb uses only 20% of that producing 25 kilos of carbon per year saving 100 kilos of carbon per year or 1 tonne over its 10 year life span!

Action plan Energy 06-07

• Continue with whole school information policy to ensure lights are turned off to save electricity and doors and windows are kept closed to conserve heat.
• Obtain full electricity and gas bills to the present date.
• Graph a monthly comparison of 2006-7 data with 2005-6 data to identify if our measures are having an impact.
• Obtain a full energy audit of the school (possible funding from grants) so that we can identify changes we can make to the heating system to save further resources.
• Footprint Trust coming to Xmas Fayre to give out energy saving light bulbs etc
• Can we use alternative sources of energy?
• Establish partnerships with energy providers to put in place energy saving measures

Energy Sept 2005 - July 2006

As part of environmental audit we identified areas where we are wasting heat energy in the school, such as through open classroom windows and doors and miuse of thermostats on radiators. We ran an awareness campaign to highlight energy wastage and encourage a change of practice.

We have continued to take electricity and gas readings over the year and are in the process of compiling graphs of the data collected.

The main area of energy wastage was lighting being used improperly and so we renewed our lighting campaign to reinforce awareness through posters and whole school appeals in assembly - even the teachers are starting to get the message now (maybe not all but we will keep going!).

The ICT department have written a program which ensures that all computers are shut down at the end of the day.

The working group spent a number of lunchtime sessions to looking into the various sources of renewable energy, their potential energy supply and limitations on their use.

Energy Sept 2004 - July 2005

We identified that we have a real problem with lights being left on around the school when rooms are empty as shown here.

The pupils have produced posters asking people to turn lights off. These are displayed next to every light point in the school except those in corridors where lights need to be left on for safety reasons.

As part of the energy audit, the Science Lab windows were identified as being extremely inefficient as some do not close and even those that do have little insulating properties.

The Eco schools committee met with the Headmaster, Mr Morris and the problem with the windows is that they are listed and so can only be replaced with identical ones and this will be extremely expensive. Although the school has some funds, we need County Hall to contribute the rest and this has not yet happened.

Ray Harrington-Vale from the Footprint trust visited the school and presented a talk called `Cradle to the grave` to all year 7 students on a class by class basis as part of a topic on renewable energy. Feedback from staff was very positive.