Improving Energy Usage: It's An Education

Using colourful home energy monitors, pupils at one infant school have learned how cutting energy waste can help save money – and have encouraged their parents and teachers to get more energy aware too!

In 2010, Ann-Marie Hopkins, a teacher at South Farnborough Infant School, became involved in an environmental project called “Less CO2”. Funded by the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, this programme involved ten schools throughout Surrey and North East Hampshire in a series of initiatives designed to create increased awareness and understanding around key aspects of sustainability.

As part of the joint project, she was given a Current Cost energy monitor for the school to develop a programme which would encourage reduced energy consumption, both in and beyond the school boundaries.

For Ann-Marie, the Current Cost energy initiative fitted perfectly within the school’s broader commitment to improving environmental performance. “A key target within our School Development Plan was to raise awareness of the importance of sustainability among our young students and more broadly in the local community,” she says.

In order to enable the project to be undertaken throughout each class, Ann-Marie successfully applied to the local Rushmoor Borough Council to provide money for 33 Current Cost monitors as part of the local authority’s Community Project Fund.

“From day one, everyone involved in the new project has been extremely positive in committing to its overall objectives,” she confirms. “At the same time, there has been an equally good response in practice, as the monitor has proved so easy to use.”

The project has been driven in large part by Ann-Marie’s established ‘Green Gang’, a team of pupils across the school’s 4-7 age group working with her on a range of environmental initiatives.

At the start of the new school year in September 2010, each member of staff took the device home as part of an initial trial. Since then, each class in turn has been set a ‘two-week energy challenge’ in which every pupil has been given a monitor to take home and measure electricity usage.

To make sure the programme was given the best possible chance of success, the children and their parents were invited to a launch event, which included a presentation led by Ann-Marie and supported by Richard Palmer from Current Cost on how to make the most of the real time monitoring device. During the first week, with the support of their parents the children’s challenge was to get used to the device, what was happening in their household as regards energy usage, how much energy was used by individual appliances and then consider what savings could be made.

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In the second week, armed with this information the objective was to put into practice simple changes which would reduce energy usage. The results would then be recorded by the children on simple record sheets which were then taken into school and transferred to a central spreadsheet.

The results overall were outstanding, as the children put pressure on parents to identify those appliances that were the worst offenders in terms of unnecessary usage and then change their habits to cut down on energy wastage. “Children throughout the school were already aware of the importance of protecting the environment as a result of other ‘green’ initiatives,” Ann-Marie confirms, “and throughout this project have frequently been described by their parents as the ‘energy police’!”

Parents and staff who have taken part have confirmed that, as a result of this project they are now more aware of how much energy they use, and the potential saving that can easily be achieved. Many are also far more vigilant with their energy use as a household.

At the same time, a parallel programme has continued throughout the school in order to improve its own energy performance. “Again, the pupils have managed this,” she says. “As the monitors are so easy to read, the ‘Green Gang’ are taking the results and recording them each week on a central noticeboard for everyone to see.

“Though the initial impetus was environmental, it was important from the outset that pupils understood that, in saving energy they were also saving money both at home and at school which could then be spent on other things.”

Inevitably there has been a broad spread of results. However, most households have found it very easy to achieve reductions in excess of 10 per cent, with the top-performing households benefiting from savings of more than 43 per cent.

And, reinforcing the value which parents have seen as a result of the trial, many have asked if they can borrow the device again in order to drive even greater savings. “As we come to the end of the first phase of the programme,” she says, “we are looking at how we can meet these requests, as well as extending the project to new parents in our early years classes.”

The programme has also contributed to the achievement of South Farnborough Infant School’s Green Flag Eco School status, and they are looking to assist other local schools to achieve the same status.

“Throughout this project, the Current Cost team have played a vital role. By working in partnership with our school from the outset we’ve succeeded in making this project an outstanding success,” she concludes.